(Bloomberg) – NBCUniversal’s Peacock registered 10 million customers in its first three months, making the new streaming service a rare bright spot in the pandemic-ravaged entertainment division of Comcast Corp.
Comcast revealed initial results while reporting its second-quarter earnings on Thursday. NBC has said it expects Peacock to reach 30 to 35 million active users by 2024. The service, which is free and supported by advertising, debuted with Comcast subscribers in April and expanded nationally on July 15.
While it’s early, exclusive and original titles have been among the top draws of the budding service, said Matt Strauss, president of Peacock and NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises. Series number 2 is “Brave New World”, adapted from Aldous Huxley’s novel, and the main film is “Psych 2”, based on the USA Network comedy-drama program. The most watched series is “Yellowstone,” a Paramount Network drama starring Kevin Costner.
Peacock will have exclusive broadcast rights to “The Office” in January. The long NBC series, a longtime streaming megahit on Netflix Inc., will be relaunched with previously unreleased content.
New structure
With Comcast’s central cable division losing hundreds of thousands of television subscribers, company executives said they would soon announce a new structure for the broadcast-focused business. They did not give any details. The transition will be “uncomfortable” but necessary to give customers “more flexibility to do and see what they want,” Chief Executive Brian Roberts said in a call with analysts.
While Peacock is Comcast’s flagship streaming service, it is not yet available through Roku Inc. and Fire TV from Amazon.com Inc., the most popular connected TV platforms.
AT&T Inc.’s HBO Max, which aims to have 50 million subscribers within five years, has 4.1 million activations so far, the company said last week. It is also not available on Roku and Fire.
While consumers have been testing Peacock, NBCUniversal’s theme park, television and movie businesses have struggled during the pandemic. The unit’s quarterly revenue decreased 25% last quarter to $ 6.1 billion, Comcast said Thursday.
NBCUniversal entered into a landmark agreement with AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. earlier this week to reduce exclusive theater screenings for new movies to 17 days. It is a “minimal” window and a new model that the company would like to bring to other theater partners and other countries, Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, said in Thursday’s earnings call. If a movie is performing well, it will stay in theaters longer, Shell said.
Parks suffering
The company’s theme parks have been particularly hard hit by the virus, posting a loss of nearly $ 400 million in the quarter. Universal’s Florida theme park reopened in June, but attendance has been poor due to concerns about the coronavirus.
However, Comcast’s Internet business continues to function as people rely on broadband connections for entertainment, as well as work and learning from home. Comcast added 323,000 internet customers in the quarter, 54% more than a year ago.
That number didn’t include more than 600,000 customers who got free internet or had a break from paying their monthly bills through programs designed to help keep people connected during the pandemic. AT&T and Verizon Communications Inc. similarly reported bands of non-paying customers similarly last week.
What Bloomberg’s Intelligence Says
“The loss of more than 1.5 million video subscribers in Q2 at Comcast, AT&T and Verizon shows continued pressure on the pay TV package. While the return of live sports in 2H may offer some relief, Covid-19’s economic cost and constant increases in pay TV package prices will keep cable cut levels high, in our view. ” .
–Geetha Ranganathan, media analyst
Click here to read the research.
Comcast’s total quarterly revenue of $ 23.7 billion and an adjusted earnings of 69 cents a share beat analyst estimates, and the company kept its dividend. Its shares fell 0.7% to $ 43.58 at 3:36 pm in New York.
The company lost 477,000 video subscribers in the quarter, more than double the losses from the same period a year ago. Comcast has raised television prices and expressed little interest in keeping customers aware of costs.
Video losses could also be a sign that more people cut the cord because some major sports were not playing during the quarter or because they lost revenue during a pandemic that caused high unemployment.
(An earlier version of this story corrected the subscription figure.)
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