NBCU’s Peacock streamer is forecast to enjoy an upward trajectory in subscriptions and revenue. A new report from Macquarie estimates Peacock will reach 52.1 million subs in 2024. That number combines both those on its free and premium plans.
Peacock kicked off in July 2020 with three options: The Free Peacock (which provides access to 13,000 hours of content), Peacock Premium (subscription/ad-supported, $4.99/month) and Peacock Premium Plus (subscription/no advertising, $9.99/month), which includes 20,000 hours of content.
According to Macquarie, in 2020, Peacock pulled in $296 million in revenue from its ad-supported services, and the majority of that coming from its basic free, ad-supported option. In December, Peacock said it had 26 million sign-ups for the service, but didn’t disclose how many were paid or active subscribers.
The report from the financial services group also estimates revenue at the streamer will hit $1.96 billion by that date. Advertising is key to Peacock’s revenue growth. Peacock is expected to achieve $604 million in revenue this year – up from $296 million in 2020. The lion’s share of that take is from subscriptions vs. advertising.
Macquarie reports ad revs will shoot up in the second half of 2021 “when the initial integration deals Peacock struck with core advertiser partners on integrated ads with NBCU fall away.”
Peacock still has no carriage deals on Amazon Fire TV, which means ~50 million active users can’t access the service. It is apparently in a prolonged dispute with Samsung over carriage, as well.
Also this week, Peacock launched the LIT Entertainment News channel, a 24-hour celebrity news hub, featuring a three-hour block of live news. The channel is exclusive to Peacock for the first month before migrating to other platforms here and abroad.