Netflix had their earnings call this week and did not release subscriber growth data. But while the company’s shareholders still seem bullish on their outlook, some questions are being asked of the competition – namely Peacock.
One of the key takeaways from the Netflix earnings was the subscriber churn, how many subs come and go from the platform. While many streamers are pursuing live sports, one of the major reasons is the belief that new subscribers for sporting events that will end up staying on the platform and paying a monthly fee.
Netflix has taken a “big event” approach to sports thus far, whether that be through Christmas Day NFL games or the much ballyhooed Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight. Their only ongoing sports-adjacent commitment is with WWE Raw every Monday. On this week’s call, they said that churn from those events has fallen in line with what the company sees around some of their other marquee entertainment properties. And investors responded positively with the stock seeing a sizable increase after the call.
On the flip side of the spectrum is Peacock. The NBC streamer has done their share of big events with NFL playoff games and a heavy dose of the Olympics. But they also have a huge amount of live sports rights from the English Premier League to college sports to rugby and cycling. Even more will arrive next year with the NBA on NBC hitting the streamer.
And while external estimates found subscribers added specifically for their NFL playoff game a couple years ago seemed to pay off, Puck’s streaming aficionado Julia Alexander strikes a different tone.
In her recap of the Netflix news and an overall look at the streaming landscape, she inserts this about Peacock being “still in the red.”
NBCUniversal is still in the red on Peacock, and growth continues to slow. Although Peacock maintains the largest percentage of customers who choose an ad-supported tier in the U.S. (78 percent, per Antenna), its overall engagement is among the lowest, failing to crack 1.5 percent of all time spent with streaming in the U.S. in every non-Olympics month this past year, per Nielsen. The narrative about people signing up for an NFL wild card game and sticking around for Ted and Poker Face is a Hollywood fable.
One of the reasons why Peacock is facing challenges (and every other major streaming company) is because of the marketshare that is being taken up by social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
In the latest March numbers from Nielsen, YouTube has 12% of all viewing. Peacock is all the way down at 1.4% even behind the likes of Roku and Tubi. Alexander also cites Facebook’s explosion in time spent on the platform watching video.
Those social media platforms obviously don’t have major live sports rights, but eating into the streaming habits of established streamers isn’t helping their business. Ultimately, streamers see live sports as a means to an end when it comes to bringing in subscribers and getting them to stick around. Peacock has made a huge bet on that front as the most aggressive streamer when it comes to stacking up live sports rights. But if they aren’t able to turn their numbers around and develop more of a foothold in the space, it brings their entire strategy into question.
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