Olympics Brought ‘More Than Planned’ Subscribers to Peacock
Olympics Brought ‘More Than Planned’ Subscribers to Peacock
NBC officials are still holding concrete details about the number of new subscribers for Peacock back until October.
The 2024 Summer Olympics are officially in the history books, but Peacock is hoping it continues to see benefits from the games for years to come. Peacock offered a massive amount of coverage for this year’s games, livestreaming more than 3,200 individual events and crafting the daily “Gold Zone” whip-around show to give audiences a window into the hottest action across the games each day. Analysts and observers are still awaiting concrete numbers on how many subscribers Peacock gained during the Olympics, and NBC’s media group chairman Mark Lazarus gave a small update on that figure at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit last week.
Key Details:
- Lazarus said that Peacock “added a lot of subs” thanks to the Olympics.
- Declining to share a hard number, Lazarus pointed to NBC’s quarterly earnings call in October as the time to expect Peacock’s new total.
- NBC has revealed that Olympics coverage was streamed for over 25 billion total minutes.
Peacock ended the second quarter of 2024 with 33 million subscribers, dropping several hundred thousand as compared to Q1. Most expect the streamer to add several million new customers thanks to its Olympics coverage, a prospect Lazarus teased at the FOS summit.
“We added a lot of subs,” he said. “Some churn, obviously, along the way. But we added more subs than we thought. Churn’s about where we thought, so we’ll end up with more than we planned.”
Lazarus did not elect to share a specific total of subscribers gained, instead saying all would be revealed in NBCUniversal’s quarterly earnings report at the end of October. But looking back on past exclusive events on Peacock can offer some clue as to what the streamer might be able to expect in terms of a subscriber increase.
Back in January, Peacock hosted an exclusive NFL playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. The game drew 23 million viewers on average, and the ratings measurement firm Antenna found that it caused 3 million new customers to sign up for the streamer.
Antenna also measured that 78% of customers who signed up to Peacock to watch that NFL game remained subscribed one month later. Peacock shrewdly secured another exclusive NFL game during the first Friday of the 2024 NFL regular season in order to keep its Olympic viewers signed up into September, so there’s a good bet it will see a similar survival rate with its NFL customers.
Rave Ratings
Some ratings data about the performance of the Olympics on Peacock has already been made public, even if we don’t have subscriber numbers yet. Soon after the conclusion of the games, NBCUniversal revealed that the Olympics had been streamed for 25.3 billion minutes total, a 40% rise over the streaming minutes of every other Olympics telecast combined.
Nielsen’s “The Gauge” report for August revealed that because of the Olympics, Peacock grew to 2.1% of all TV watched during the month. That was an all-time personal best for Peacock and represented only the third time this year a streaming service had gained a 0.5% share on a month-to-month basis.
It’s looking more and more like the Olympics were a resounding success for Peacock. I think the streamer likely gained anywhere from 2 to 3 million new subscribers thanks to its coverage, and if NBCU can convert them to long-term customers it will help further the company’s goals of increasing revenue generated by the streamer and ultimately seeing it turn a profit.
Peacock
Peacock is a subscription video streaming service from NBCUniversal that includes original shows, blockbuster movies, and classic television series. Peacock is home to “Yellowstone,” and “The Office,” as well as original hits like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” You can also watch live sports including NFL, MLB, WWE, Olympics, Premier League, NASCAR, French Open, College Football and Basketball, and PGA Tour. Premium Plus subscribers can stream their local NBC feed in all 210 markets.