Peacock lost (a rounded) 1 million subscribers from April to June, Comcast revealed on Tuesday in its second-quarter 2024 earnings materials. It now has 33 million subs, per the financial statements; the same statements listed Peacock as having a rounded 34 million subscribers as of March 31, 2024. (Comcast later specified Peacock’s Q1 subs, when extrapolated beyond its own rounded figure, totaled 33.5 million.)
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Either way, it still isn’t making money. The streamer lost $348 million in Q2, an improvement over the first quarter’s $639 million loss . NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, has not yet set a target for Peacock to turn a profit. Even the three (yes, three) CEOs at Paramount Global have set an expectation of profitability for their core streaming service, Paramount+ (it’s 2025).
Peacock posted revenue of $1.0 billion for this past quarter, which was also down from Q1. Comcast’s main revenue stream remains its broadband business.
If one were to forgive Peacock’s quarter-to-quarter sub loss, the case would go like this: Q1 featured the first-ever streaming-exclusive NFL playoff game, which immediately generated 3 million new members for the platform. But most of them stuck around over the next few months, so that’s more of an excuse than an explanation.
In his prepared remarks, Comcast boss Brian Roberts stuck with the year-over-year (Q2 2024 vs. Q2 2023) improvements. We’d have done the same. And to be fair, there is some seasonality at play here.
All told, Comcast reported adjusted earnings of $1.21 per share on $29.688 billion in revenue. Wall Street expected $1.12 of earnings per share on $30.02 billion in revenue.
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Shares in Comcast (CMCSA on the NASDAQ) closed Monday’s regular trading day (4 p.m. ET) at $39.53 apiece.
Peacock is gearing up for a strong summer. The Paris Olympics begin on Friday, July 26 and end 16 days later on Sunday, August 11. Peacock was supposed to launch with the 2020 Summer Olympics, but COVID had other plans. Those games were postponed until the summer of 2021.
Universal Pictures released “The Fall Guy,” starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, on May 3. The studio likely lost money on that one. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” released on March 8, made a lot of money — the box office haul was split between the first and second quarters.
There wasn’t much new to speak of on Peacock, but we’ll speak of two shows that populated the quarter anyway. IndieWire’s Ben Travers gave “Apples Never Fall,” which premiered in the first quarter, a B grade . Lower on the brow but higher on the Nielsen sheets in Q2 was reality competition “Love Island.” Peacock shares the rights to several other successful streaming series, like “Suits” (with Netflix) and “Heartland” (with Netflix and Peacock), but it is a small contributor to those successes.
In June, streaming combined for 40.3 percent of all TV and streaming usage, according to Nielsen. That’s the most for a category since the ratings company’s monthly “The Gauge” report launched in 2021. Peacock was 1.2 percent of that.
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