PHILADELPHIA—Peacock is taking flight in the streaming market, as Comcast has announced that the latest streaming platform has amassed 10 million signups to date.
The data comes from Comcast’s second quarter financial report.
The Peacock streaming service, which offers both free and subscription ad-supported tiers, as well as a premium ad-free tier, launched nationally on July 15. Prior to that launch, it was made available to Xfinity X1 and Flex Customers in April. Comcast did not provide any information on how many signups came from that soft April launch and how much have come since the national launch.
However, Comcast also announced that it lost 477,000 pay-TV customers across its residential and business channels for Q2. For the first six months of 2020, Comcast has lost a total of 815,000 Xfinity TV customers; 1.6 million pay-TV customers in the last year. Still, Comcast remains the No. 1 supplier of traditional linear pay-TV service in the U.S., per reports.
Comcast also provided details to its broadcast television revenue for Q2, which saw a decline of 1.6% to $2.4 billion. This is a reflection of lower advertising revenue in the quarter (down 27.9%), which is due to the impact of COVID-19 on advertisers and the cancellation of sporting events. Content licensing revenue, however, increased 58.5%, which the company said was primarily due to content provided under licensing agreements, including transactions with Peacock. Distribution and other revenue increased 9.2%, Comcast says primarily because of higher retransmission consent fees.
For the first six months of 2020, Comcast reports that the revenue from broadcast television has increased 3.7% to $5 billion compared to 2019, with increases in consent licensing and distribution revenue offsetting the loss of advertising.
In addition, Comcast has reported that cable networks revenue has decreased 14.7% to $2.5 billion in Q2 due to lower distribution revenue and advertising revenue. Again, COVID-19 impacted advertising revenues (down 27%). Content licensing and other revenue did increase 23%. Cable’s six month total revenue has experienced a decrease of 7.6% to $5.4 billion for 2019.
For additional information on Comcast’s Q2 2020 financial report, visit the Comcast’s website.
