NBCUniversal’s Peacock is peacocking again this morning, when parent company Comcast boasted the streaming service has “nearly 22 million sign-ups.” The number was revealed in Thursday’s third-quarter 2020 financials.
Our last check in came in mid-September, when Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts said Peacock had just topped 15 million sign-ups. Prior to that update, as of the end of July, Peacock had 10 million sign-ups.
Comcast has projected Peacock will have up to 35 million subscribers by the end of 2024.
The Peacock ad-supported service first became available to Comcast and Cox customers on April 15, three before its full launch on July 15. Like HBO Max, Peacock is still not available on Amazon Fire TV devices, a huge player in the streaming world.
Peacock, which offers originals like late-night shows from Larry Wilmore and Amber Ruffin (pictured above), as well as the upcoming “Saved by the Bell” reboot and library content like “30 Rock,” is available in two tiers, one for free and one with two different levels of fees.
On Wednesday, Peacock canceled the original series “Brave New World” after one season.
The free option, called Peacock Free, includes next-day access to current seasons of freshman broadcast series on NBC, as well as library content like “Parks & Recreation” and curated daily news and sports programming. As for Peacock originals, this option only includes “select” episodes as well as access to what Peacock is calling “streaming genre channels” like “SNL Vault,” “Family Movie Night” and “Olympic Profiles.”
The second tier, called Peacock Premium, is available for no extra charge to Comcast and Cox subscribers. For everyone else, it cost $4.99 a month for an ad-supported option, or $9.99 a month to have no ads. The Premium tier features everything on the Free option but includes all Peacock Originals, early access to late-night series like “Tonight Show” and “Late Night” and more sports including Premier League soccer.
Read all about Comcast’s, and thus NBCUniversal’s, Q3 results here. It’s probably not much of a spoiler to say that Universal’s box office and theme parks revenue was WAY down from the comparable quarter in 2019, when we were not in the midst of a global pandemic.