Maybe slow and steady does win the race? NBCU’s streaming service Peacock saw modest growth in Q1, jumping from 36 million to 41 million subscribers in the quarter, according to Comcast’s Q1 earnings call on Thursday.
As its subscriber base climbs, so is its revenue: the streamer grew revenue to $1.2 billion, a 16% YoY increase, and narrowed its losses from $639 million in the prior-year period to $215 million. With that said, executives said they are bracing for the impact of broader economic uncertainty.
“While we don’t see any noteworthy evidence of economic challenges for the year thus far, the odds have increased that challenges may be approaching,” Michael Cavanagh, Comcast’s president, told investors.
Sporting goods: While Peacock didn’t have an exclusive NFL wild-card game to boost viewership last quarter like it did in Q124, Cavanagh said that NBCU’s new media rights deal with the NBA, which will bring NBA games to Peacock beginning in the fall will be a “launchpad” for further scaling the streamer’s growth.
It will also be a main focus of NBCUniversal’s upcoming upfronts presentation.
“Our content—all of it, but inclusive of the new content from NBA—is going to be a key anchor of what we do around the upfronts,” Cavanagh said.
Wicked good: NBCU also has several major tentpole movie releases that could boost Peacock following their theatrical releases, including Wicked, which was Peacock’s most-watched straight-from-theater film yet, and How to Train Your Dragon, which will arrive in theaters in June. On the TV side, don’t forget NBC’s upcoming unscripted marketing-agency reality show, On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, which seems as if it were designed in a lab to appeal to advertisers.
Speaking of advertising: Total advertising revenue for Comcast’s media business dropped about 7% last quarter, partially due to a drop-off in political advertising and some sports content seasonality, Jason Armstrong, Comcast’s CFO, told investors. Excluding those factors, “advertising was relatively flat,” he said. While linear network ad revenue dropped, it increased on Peacock.
Like Cavanagh, Armstrong acknowledged there could be bumps in the road, noting that the “current macroeconomic uncertainty” could impact advertising in future quarters.
“Advertising is the category that has shown the most economic-related cyclicality in our business, historically,” he said.
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