Love Island has become hugely popular in the US
Peacock added two million paid subscribers in the second quarter to reach 48 million, as the Comcast-owned US streamer turned a profit for the first time since its launch in 2020.
Comcast reported on Thursday that Peacock had posted revenue of US$1.9bn and adjusted earnings of US$189m, driven by the NBA Playoffs, FIFA World Cup (Peacock, alongside Telemundo, held Spanish-language rights) and its US version of reality juggernaut Love Island.
In the same quarter last year, Peacock revenue was US$1.2bn and the platform posted a loss of US$101m.
Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said Peacock’s quarterly performance was a “milestone event” for the streaming service, which has been the slowest of all the major US streamers to reach profitability. Since it went live in July 2020, the platform has racked up more than an estimated US$11bn in losses.
Cavanagh added that Comcast expects Peacock to be profitable on an annual basis going forward, but results may vary on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
Peacock’s performance helped to push Comcast’s overall media revenue up 25% to US$5.69bn in Q2, with adjusted earnings of US$708m. Within that, domestic ad revenue was up 55% to US$2.16bn, helped by the World Cup, while domestic distribution was up 22% to US$1.99bn and international networks grew 6.1% to US$1.33bn.
In its studios segment, revenue was up 25% to US$3.04bn and adjusted earnings were US$202m. Within that, content licensing was down 0.3% to US$1.8bn, with the company noting that content licensing revenue at its film studios declined while licensing from the TV studios grew.
The financial report comes less than four weeks after Comcast announced plans to separate its studios and broadcast business from its broadband and tech operations to create two independent publicly traded companies.
The studios and broadcast spin-off will comprise NBCUniversal, Peacock and European pay TV outfit Sky, the latter of which recently agreed a deal to acquire the broadcast and streaming operations of UK broadcaster ITV.
During Thursday’s conference call, Cavanagh doubled down on the message that Comcast is not spinning off its media assets in order to ultimately sell them. The company expects to complete the spin-off within a year.
Cavanagh told analysts: “I believe that NBCUniversal and Sky do have the heft and the relationships and the operational capabilities to continue to be major players as an independent.”
Many are sceptical, with last month’s announcement sending the M&A rumour mill into overdrive and creating the definitive sense that Comcast had hung a “for sale” sign on its studio and assets.
Among the sceptics is Peter Supino, an analyst at equity research firm Wolfe Research, who said NBCUniversal could be sold even before the spin-off takes place. Supino wrote in a research note last month: “We doubt that this break-up will occur. Instead, we expect one or both Comcast units to merge with peers or competitors.”
Cavanagh added that Comcast is of the view that NBCUniversal and its portfolio of assets are large enough to compete with its rivals, many of which are scaling up themselves.
“We look at [NBCUniversal, Sky and the parks business], and each of them is competing really well against their natural competitors and producing great results,” he said, adding that “we do definitely have the scale that is needed to compete.”
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Source: C21media.net
