NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell: Peacock’s Familiar Content, Makes It the Opposite of Quibi
Peacock and Quibi launched just a few days shy of each other, with the NBCUniversal-owned streamer launching on April 15 exclusively to Xfinity X1 and Flex customers, merely nine days after the launch of Quibi on April 6. (Peacock later launched nationally on July 15). However, though the two services hit the market at the same time, Quibi announced they will be shutting down in December, merely eight months post-launch.
Outside of having the incredible backing of a media conglomerate such as Comcast, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell believes part of Peacock’s success is due to the fact that the streaming service houses content people are already familiar with.
During the company’s Q3 earnings call this morning, when asked about the types of content Peacock subscribers are gravitating towards, Shell stated, “Premier League soccer has been an interesting driver for us, some of us our topical stuff, some of our NBC News product has been resonating. Some of the shows that we have been able to get from other people that they didn’t necessarily discover on other platforms such as ‘Yellowstone,’ and recently ‘Mr Mercedes’ are resonating.”
He continued, “I think in general if you look at the usage, the fact that we have a deep library of familiar stuff is kind of the opposite of Quibi. We have stuff people want to watch—they want to rewatch ‘30 Rock,’ watch Dick Wolf’s library. It’s really across the board and very broad based.”
After months of negotiations, NBCUniversal also signed a deal to bring the service to Roku devices in September, a move that’s already proving to be beneficial. “We’re just seeing the effects of the Roku deal just kicking in,” he stated. “We have lots of growth coming in among Roku customers going forward because we are just seeing the beginning of that effect on us.”
Earlier this morning, Comcast announced today that the streaming service is now up to almost 22 million sign-ups. The company says they are “exceeding our expectations on all engagement metrics in only a few months.” The growth comes as they added a record 633K internet customers, while seeing losses of 273K cable customers.