Peacock

US communications behemoth Comcast, owner of NBCUniversal’s D2C strategy, is led by Peacock. Of the big four D2C services that launched in a 12-month period, between H2 2019 and H2 2020, Peacock was the late entrant. Potentially, it may have the biggest disruptive impact because Comcast owns the second largest cable pay-TV business and the largest broadband business in the US. Alongside that, it has NBCUniversal – which includes the largest free-to-air TV network in the US and the fourth largest movie studio, Universal Studios. It also operates Spanish- language network and content producer Telemundo, which competes domestically with Univision and internationally with Mexico’s Televisa as a leading producer of Hispanic content. Internationally it acquired Europe’s largest pay-TV operator, Sky, in 2018, along with its over-the-top (OTT) service, Now TV, currently available in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Italy – the team of which is a core part of the 600 engineers now building Peacock.

Peacock came to market in two distinct phases with three different monetisation strategies. Peacock Free is a free, ad-supported service with ad loads restricted to five minutes per hour (compared to linear TV’s 15+ minutes of advertising). Peacock Premium, which includes a wider and more up-to-date library, as well as Peacock Originals, is $4.99 per month, with a $9.99 option for an ad-free experience. On April 15th, Peacock Premium had a soft launch in the US as a free addition for Comcast’s Xfinity subscribers and Cox subscribers. On July 15th, the full launch was led by Peacock Free and the unbundled version of Peacock Premium. July 15th was originally chosen as it provides one week of marketing ramp-up time before the July 24th opening ceremony of the subsequently postponed Tokyo Olympics.

Despite the Olympic setback, Peacock was the fastest growing D2C service in the US in 2020, reaching 33 million subscribers by the end of Q4 2020.