NEW YORK—The Peacock streaming service now has 26 million people signed up, according to Comcast’s NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell. At the end of the third quarter, Peacock had a reported 20-21 million signups.
Shell reported the new numbers during the UBS Global TVT Investor Virtual Conference. “The momentum just continues in a very strong linear way,” he said.
Peacock is the streaming home of most of NBCUniversal’s legacy content, and is offering new original series like a “Saved by the Bell” reboot. However, some of its marquee programming has not yet been available on the service. This includes “The Office,” which is coming to Peacock on Jan. 1, and the Olympics, which were delayed to 2021 because the pandemic.
Shell says that ad demand for Peacock, which offers both an ad-supported and ad-free service to consumers, has been strong. He says that ad revenue for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo are actually ahead of where they were at the same point prior to the games’ 2020 date.
During his presentation at the UBS event, Shell also spoke on production demands in the pandemic and the announcement last week of WarnerMedia premiering 2021 Warner Bros. movies on HBO Max at the same time as movie theaters.
TVT’s sister publication B+C has a full report.
