The Peacock streaming service has seen its fair share of struggles since launching in July 2020, particularly that it hasn’t really launched an original series hit that has broken out in a significant way. As we have entered 2022, we are learning about Peacock’s revenue in 2021 and it’s not looking too good, despite having 9 million subscribers by the end of last year.
Per Variety, Comcast reported its Q4 earnings this week and the numbers for Peacock are not promising. Even though they have 9 million subscribers for their paid service and revenue reaching $778 million, they spent almost $1.5 billion on streaming content among other costs. By the end of all of that, their loss doubled from 2020 to $1.7 billion.
The plan to get Peacock out of the red is to double down on spending on their original content and focus on expanding their paid subscribers while enticing new ones to the service. Over the course of the next few years, NBCUniversal and Comcast went to spend $5 billion a year on original content. What will help matters is if they can continue to scoop up their popular titles from other streaming services as they did with The Office. The popular comedy series was housed on Netflix until the Peacock streaming service launched.
Even with a plan in place, Peacock seems to be on the losing end of all the streaming services. It was previously reported that their original series don’t really make a dent in the pop culture landscape. The closest to this was the launch of Dr. Death, which appealed to true crime junkies. They did do some day-and-date theatrical and streaming releases with the sequel to Boss Baby and Halloween Kills and, even though they say those endeavors were successful, they didn’t really release hard numbers to back up that assessment. It’s possible that it was successful enough because they’re doing it again with the Jennifer Lopez/Owen Wilson romantic comedy, Marry Me. Peacock does have the Saved By The Bell sequel series, now in its second season, and the upcoming Bel-Air, which puts a dramatic spin on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Those shows are connected to familiar properties. Peacock’s problem is that they have yet to launch an original series that can truly compete with the likes of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, or even Apple TV+.
Do YOU think Peacock can rebound and be competitive in the streaming market?