Peacock Gets A New President, Hulu Gets More Questions
Perhaps seeing the writing scrawled across the office walls, Hulu President Kelly Campbell decamped down the street to a similar gig at Peacock, which has far fewer subs, far less revenue and, increasingly, far more secure prospects.
To be sure, Campbell will have plenty of fixin’ to do in her next gig. Peacock was more of a drab Peahen its first year in terms of attracting and keeping audiences, with a churn rate that a new Kantar study pegs as the industry’s highest, (a thoroughly unappetizing 13 percent, more than 3X Netflix).
In part that was bad luck: the Tokyo Olympics that were supposed to start less than two weeks after the service went wide in July didn’t happen for a year, depriving the service of early attention, promotion and viewers. And as with other new services that launched in the teeth of the pandemic, Peacock had few original shows on offer, a confusing set of tiers for programming and pricing, and formidable established competition. That was a bad combo for a so-so service trying to break through as consumers began sampling everyone’s wares at record rates during the early pandemic.
Peacock President, and former Hulu President Kelly Campbell
That sampling gave people few reasons to stick with Peacock, though at last the service began taking wing a bit this year, with more than 1 billion hours of Olympics streaming, the repatriation of cult favorite The Office from Netflix, and the launch of more original shows.
Elsewhere in Comcast’s vast video portfolio, we’re also seeing interesting opportunities arise that could further boost Peacock: the launch in England of Sky-branded TVs that don’t need a set-top box or satellite service, plans for a Hisense-built Comcast TV in the United States, and a strengthening partnership with fellow early also-ran ViacomCBS to launch a new blended service in Europe called SkyShowtime. Peacock will be rolled out in coming months alongside SkyShowtime to Sky’s 20 million European customers.
And speaking of repatriation: at some point, all the Comcast/NBCU shows now going to Hulu and other services will return like Capistrano swallows to Peacock, to further plump up the bird.
Which brings us back to the joint that Campbell so summarily departed a week ago, Disney-owned Hulu. It’s one of the OG streamers, second only (and barely) to Netflix in terms of streaming seniority after 13 years in the business, and among the biggest, most lucrative and most widely available. And yet…
Disney took control of the company as part of its Fox mega deal two years ago, though Comcast remains a very silent minority partner. And despite Hulu’s seeming advantages compared to her new roost, Campbell departs during a time of extreme uncertainty for Hulu. Among the list of questions:
Retransmission. A 10-year-old retrans agreement is expiring between Comcast and Disney’s ABC and ESPN TV groups. Given the fluid situation for cable providers, will Disney be able to extract more rents, as it did for decades, especially for ESPN? For that matter, will it seek the ability to spin out ESPN as a direct-to-consumer play, finally making ESPN Plus a truly useful outlet (albeit a far more expensive one)?
Spinoffs. Speaking of ABC and ESPN, will Disney make like AT&T and spin-off its legacy entertainment divisions while they still have lingering value, as suggested by analysts such as LightShed Partners? For that matter, will Disney make like its sports-network competition and tie ESPN into a lucrative partnership with a sports book? Disney was reportedly shopping such a deal for a $3 billion price tag, which suggests it will need a very big partner. Gambling companies are desperately trying to buy market share while they can, so there’s an opportunity for a big deal. But would Disney do that deal while ESPN is still under its family-friendly umbrella? What would that mean for the semi-integration between ESPN and Hulu/Hulu with Live TV?
Arbitration. Comcast and Disney have been fighting for a while over Hulu’s true value, a function of the exit agreement Comcast signed after Disney’s Hulu takeover. The agreement allows Comcast to sell Disney its 30-percent stake for a minimum $27.5 billion total valuation, beginning in 2024. That’s worth about $9 billion, but Comcast suggests Disney has declined to launch Hulu internationally as a way to cap what it will have to pay out. Instead, Disney launched something that looks remarkably like Hulu, called Star, which is now launching around the planet. Hulu could have been debuting in all those places, and been the future of Disney streaming, but the company chose to build a new streaming brand from scratch. Interesting that this expensive approach is also a nice way to dramatically reduce Hulu valuation growth. You don’t have to be Scarlett Johansson to think there may be some platform bait-and-switch going on at Disney, again.
Repatriation. One possible outgrowth of whatever happens with the arbitration is a possible early departure or shift to non-exclusive status on Hulu for the Comcast programming available there. Given Campbell’s four years at Hulu (including two as Chief Marketing Officer), she’ll be well positioned to smartly integrate those repatriated shows into Peacock, and market them to audiences. To boot, whatever the buyout’s final total, it’ll leave Campbell sitting on a hefty multi-billion-dollar nest egg just in time to finance more badly needed original programming.
Holes to fill. Regardless of whether the Comcast content remains on Hulu non-exclusively, the service will soon have considerably less licensed content than it once did. How will Hulu fill the resulting programming hole? Hulu has had a few well regarded originals, such as The Handmaid’s Tale and 2019 Sundance hit Palm Springs, but it’s long been a home to watch the TV episodes you missed, not new stuff you’ve never seen before. Will Disney cough up the cash to make lots more such programming, like all its big competitors? Can Hulu possibly remain competitive if it doesn’t?
For now, Kelly Campbell’s “hulugans” (as she referred to them on her LinkedIn profile) are reporting to her former boss, DTC chief Rebecca “No Relation” Campbell. It’s possible Disney won’t immediately replace Kelly, or even replace her at all as it evolves its streaming strategy for a Star-filled global future. Given the challenges and uncertainties, you’d have to wonder why anyone would take the gig.