PHILADELPHIA—Comcast is hoping that the adage of needing to spend money to make money proves true, as its Peacock streaming service lost a reported $914 million in 2020 while bringing in $118 million in revenue.
The numbers come from a Comcast SEC filing. Per the report, Peacock lost $662 million in adjusted EBITDA, as well as $252 million in intra company payments.
Peacock launched nationwide in July 2020, offering both ad-supported and premium subscriber plans. Per its most recent report in January, Comcast shared that Peacock has surpassed 33 million sign ups.
New content is set to come to Peacock, including more sports programming as NBCSN is set to shut down at some point in 2021, and the addition of WWE content, which will officially launch on the streaming service on March 18.
Despite the losses, Comcast reported a total revenue of nearly $103.6 billion in 2020, and $30.8 billion in adjusted EBITDA. NBCU, meanwhile, had a total revenue of $27.2 billion and an adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 billion.
According to TV Tech’s sister publication, B+C, Comcast will be changing its accounting for Peacock. Initially, as a startup, Peacock financials were included in the corporate category. Now, Peacock will be part of NBCUniversal’s accounting.
