Peacock Reaches 28 Million Active Streaming Accounts

Peacock has reached a new milestone as they count 28 million monthly active accounts in the United States alone. There are 13 million paid subscribers according to a Q1 earnings call on Thursday. Comcast is happy with the streamer’s efforts in the early days of the show. NBCU’s Jeff Shell had a lot to reflect on during the call. Peacock has found a way to leverage legacy content into positive growth. Another feather in the platform’s cap is the way its been tied to both the NFL and Olympics coverage. There’s no doubt the live sports angle has been a boost for their operation in the early going. But, one of the secret weapons for them has to be a fresh partnership with WWE. Along with the other sporting events, it has positioned Peacock as a hub for all kinds of entertainment that demands eyeballs the second it begins. Hits like Bel-Air have also put some wind into their sails.

“The noise in the rest of the streaming business just validates where we’re going,” NBCU chief Jeff Shell said according to The Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve said from the beginning when we launched Peacock that we’re taking a different approach from other people in the streaming business. We don’t view Peacock as a separate and distinct business. We think of it as an extension of our existing TV business. And we manage it that way, that’s how we set up our business. That’s how we program it, that’s how we sell advertising across both linear and Peacock. I think that that strategy is working.”

“Our business strategy is great for us, it is working,” though he noted they would “continue to evaluate” streaming trends and make changes on the fly. “We are happy with how the business is scaling and think the noise in the rest of the streaming business really, if anything, just validates where we are going.”

“Importantly, retention on our service after airing all of this special content in such a concentrated period of time was well above our expectation,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said. “We have seen a 25 percent increase in hours of engagement year-over-year.”

“Our media business is performing well, and the scale of our reach is underscored by our successful broadcast of the Super Bowl and the Olympics in the same week,” he added. “These events were viewed by more than 200 million people in the U.S. across NBCUniversal’s platforms, including Peacock, which had an exceptional quarter.”

Do you love Peacock so far? Let us know down in the comments!