Live sport helps NBC add 4m Peacock subscribers and narrow ... - SportsPro Media

Peacock revenues are up 68% to US$830mStreaming losses narrowed to US$565mNBC has been linked with deal for NBA from 2025An expanded portfolio of sports content helped NBC’s Peacock direct-to-consumer (DTC) service add four million subscribers during the third quarter of 2023, while parent company Comcast’s streaming losses narrowed to US$565 million.Peacock now has 28 million subscribers, up from 24 million in Q2, while revenues rose by 64 per cent to US$830 million year-on-year.Comcast has invested billions in content and customer acquisition for Peacock, with sport a vital part of its offering.The service simulcasts NBC’s live sports programming and supplements this with expanded and exclusive coverage.Its portfolio now includes the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the Olympic Games, Big Ten college football, Premier League soccer, PGA Tour golf, and WWE Network.The media giant is also ready to throw its hat into the ring for the National Basketball Association (NBA).The NBA’s current rights deals expire at the end of 2024/25 and the league is widely expected to offer a new streaming package in its next cycle.In a call with investors, Comcast said its linear and streaming platforms offered the best opportunity for rights holders to manage the shift from analogue to digital distribution by providing the widest reach possible on NBC and the most innovative viewing experience on Peacock.“Our company has a long, deep, rich history in sports … We’ve got a great team and culture of big events … and with Peacock now we have the most live sports of any of the streaming services,” said Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts.“We present a somewhat unique ability to help [rights holders] gain the maximum engagement now with broadcast and cable … and [offer them] a robust streaming service that has had a superb quarter – a lot of that is driven by sports on Peacock.”SportsPro says…Comcast is just one of several media giants in the US to have run up serious losses in an attempt to lure cable subscribers and cord cutters to its streaming platform. However, as investor attention has shifted from revenue growth and customer acquisition towards profitability, pressure on narrowing these losses has intensified.Peacock’s shuttering of its free tier has initiated a dramatic increase in paid-for subscribers, while it has arguably had the greatest success of any traditional media player in using sport as a customer acquisition vehicle.The next challenge isn’t just narrowing these losses to turn a profit but to ensure that streaming can become as lucrative as linear broadcasting.For Comcast, this means ensuring the audience is large enough to attract advertisers and luring enough subscribers to offset a reduction in carriage fees on cable.Sport will be a crucial vehicle in ensuring as many pay-TV households as possible make the leap to Peacock but NBC isn’t the only media firm looking to do the same.Paramount+ offers a combination of CBS Sports content and exclusive events, while Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is adding a premium sports tier to Max.Though ESPN and Fox have so far resisted moving their most valuable content to DTC in order to protect their traditional revenue streams, the former has indicated it will do so from 2025, while Fox will inevitably have to consider such a move given the prevailing market trends.Then there’s the digitally-native services.Amazon is using sport to drive Prime subscribers while even Netflix could reverse its position on live rights.And that’s before we even consider any league or team owned-and-operated DTC platforms.Subscription fatigue could negatively affect any of these ambitions, with consumers unlikely to subscribe to everything. Anyone for a bundle?