NBCUniversal Media LLC's aggregate streaming service Peacock has added some 3 million paid subscribers thus far in the fourth quarter.
NBCU CEO Jeff Shell said at a Dec. 5 investor conference that the service currently counts over 18 million paid subscribers, up from more than 15 million as of the third quarter.
Shell pointed to Peacock offering Telemundo Deportes' presentation of the FIFA World Cup, including all 64 matches and a host of related fare, as a big driver for the service.
"Peacock has been off the charts because people like the production and don't mind watching in Spanish," said Shell. "For a lot of people, it's the only streaming option they have to watch [the] World Cup." Fox Corp.'s free-ad-supported platform Tubi is offering the matches on delay.
Shell said when the rights to the event were acquired, the deal was struck as a means for Telemundo (US) to narrow the audience gap against Spanish-language media leader TelevisaUnivision Inc.
While Telemundo Deportes' pact with FIFA preceded Peacock's debut, the company's sports rights deals, including the NFL and the English Premier League, now include a streaming component, the executive said.
Shell also pointed to the availability of Universal theatricals on Peacock as another reason the service's paid subscriber roster is rising.
"Movies drive platforms, and our movie studios are driving Peacock," Shell said.
Additionally, Peacock has been helped by the migration of fare that formerly encored on Hulu LLC's subscription video-on-demand service. Content like Dick Wolf's slate of NBC (US) procedurals, "Saturday Night Live" and Bravo (US) originals now air on Peacock. "We're seeing a lot of strength there," Shell said.
Netflix Inc.'s move toward offering ads and the Dec. 8 launch of the ad-supported version of Walt Disney Co.'s Disney+ has been validating for the company's choice to focus on this streaming business model, he said.
With usage of more than 20 hours per month among paid subscribers, Peacock is approaching average revenue per user of $10, Shell said. "That results in a business that on a run-rate basis is doing over $2 billion of revenue" since its bow in April 2020, he said. "So, [we're] very, very encouraged. We think we picked the right strategy.”
As to the ad market in general, the macroeconomic uncertainty has meant NBCU is seeing marketers holding onto their dollars a bit longer in the scatter market, when commercials are purchased close to their air date.
"Pricing is still pretty good. It's really cash and cash advertising coming in late. It used to be a month out," Shell said before noting that the dollars are now arriving a couple of days beforehand. "That would indicate to me that advertisers are kind of like the rest of us — trying to figure out where the economy is going and holding back."
Still, Shell said NBCU is going to register a mid-single-digit gain year over year in fourth-quarter advertising, driven by Peacock, political ad spending for the Senate runoff in Georgia as well as the company's scale.
"We just are a bit insulated from the weakness in the ad market because of the scale and quality of our ad sales group," Shell said. "But there's no question it's getting worse."
