What Will Peacock Need to Do to Keep Customers Who Subscribe to Watch Summer Olympics?
What Will Peacock Need to Do to Keep Customers Who Subscribe to Watch Summer Olympics?
NBCUniversal’s streamer managed to hold onto a majority of viewers who signed up to watch its exclusive NFL Wild Card game, but a price increase could change the equation.
The Olympic lights will be shining brightly on Peacock this summer! The streaming service from NBCUniversal is slated to broadcast every single event of the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris, offering the most comprehensive coverage to ever surround the games. The bookkeepers at Comcast shrewdly decided to increase the price of Peacock just days before the start of the Olympics, but new data from Parrot Analytics shows that plan could be quite risky unless Peacock executes the maneuver perfectly.
Key Details:
- Peacock is seen as a good value by customers now, but must ensure that perception survives its price hike to keep viewers who sign up for the Olympics subscribed.
- Both Peacock plans will rise in price by $2 per month starting in July.
- The release of the new “Ted” TV series helped Peacock retain subscribers from its exclusive NFL Wild Card game in January.
As Parrot points out, Peacock will be walking a bit of a tightrope when it raises prices just before the Olympics. An extra $2 per month for essentially unlimited Olympics streaming is not likely to dissuade many viewers from signing up, but Parrot’s data shows that the streamer doesn’t have a large margin for error when it comes to being considered a good value by customers. Demand for shows on Peacock’s ad-free Premium Plus plan is already slightly lower than demand for titles on the similarly-priced Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, and even a $2 price hike could switch the service from a good value proposition to a bad one in the eyes of viewers, especially after The Games end.
Peacock’s Olympics coverage should be more than enough to keep viewers subscribed for the duration of the games; not only is it planning to offer every event, it has even secured the services of NFL RedZone hosts Scott Hanson and Andrew Siciliano for a 10-hour daily whip-around show called “Gold Zone” which will cover all the action from the games.
A recent survey from Bango found that nearly 30% of audiences say they’ll sign up for a new streamer to watch the Olympics this year. The streamer managed to attract an extra 3 million subscribers to its platform to watch the January NFL Wild Card game between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs which was exclusive to Peacock.
How Will Peacock Convince Olympic Viewers to Stay Subscribed?
Research compiled by Antenna shows that 78% of viewers who signed up to watch the January Wild Card game on Peacock were still subscribed to the streamer one month later. Some portion of the credit for that retention rate went to the new “Ted” TV series, which released all episodes of its first season two days before the game was played. Is Peacock saving another marquee TV release for the end of the Olympics to keep customers engaged once the games end?
It’s a definite possibility, and Universal movies like “The Fall Guy” and “Despicable Me 4” could also be advanced as reasons for customers to stay with Peacock once the Olympics end. Sports fans could also be wooed by Peacock’s stream of an exclusive NFL opening-week game, as the games will end just a few weeks before the NFL regular season is set to begin. Peacock will stream a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers played in Brazil on Friday, Sept. 6.
Bundling options could also help Peacock retain Olympic viewers at its new, higher price points. Comcast internet subscribers will soon get access to a new bundle of Apple TV+, Netflix and Peacock starting at just $15 per month, a value that will get even better once the price of Peacock rises. Charging more for a standalone Peacock subscription could push more Xfinity internet customers to the bundle, and creating new bundle options that all customers can buy could cut down on Peacock churn even further.
Peacock’s Olympic coverage will deliver an impressive amount of content to customers, but the streamer has to be thinking about what comes immediately after. If it doesn’t have a concrete plan for retaining customers who sign up specifically to watch the games, this group of users could depart the streamer in huge numbers once the Olympics end.
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,” “The Office,” and original hits like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” You can also watch live sports and NBC programming, including the NFL, MLB, WWE, the Olympics, the Premier League, NASCAR, the French Open, college football and basketball, and the PGA Tour. Premium Plus subscribers can stream their local NBC feed in all 210 markets.