During Comcast’s 2023 Q4 earnings call on Thursday, the company announced that streaming service Peacock exceeded its subscription goal for the year.
Peacock crept up to 31 million subscriptions to end 2023, a net gain of three million in the quarter. In the third quarter, it added four million. A year ago, Peacock had just 20 million paid subscriptions, and a year before, it was sitting at just nine million. Per Comcast’s earnings call, the average revenue per user (ARPU) of those subscribers is $10 per month.
Comcast was seeking 30 million paid subscribers to Peacock by the end of 2023, and it beat that goal by a full million.
It’s worth noting that some of the subscription gains may have been for the Peacock-exclusive Bills-Chargers NFL game in late December. Savvy fans could have subscribed for a month to watch both that game and the Wild Card game. The subscription would then be counted in the Q4 numbers before falling off the totals in January.
Additionally, quarterly revenue for Peacock exceeded $1 billion for the first time, an increase of 57%. While the service did finish the year with a stunning $2.7 billion in annual losses, that’s lower than the earlier projection of $3 billion in what would be the peak year for Peacock losses.
While NBC execs didn’t comment on subscription gains due to Peacock’s exclusive NFL Wild Card game earlier this month (one firm claimed the service gained 2.8 million subscribers), Comcast President Mike Cavanagh said the company “would expect to see an increase in paid subs” and was focused on “retention of the subs that came in right around the game.” Cavanagh also noted that Peacock has “seen record levels of hours viewed in the days that have followed the Wild Card Game itself,” which seems like a positive development for retaining subscribers.
In addition to ongoing coverage of the Premier League and Big Ten basketball, Peacock will stream Summer Olympics coverage this summer from Paris, another potential subscription driver to the platform.
[Comcast]
