Peacock Gets NBCU’s Next Days, Streaming Overtakes Cable, Not All Of Linear

1. Peacock Gets NBCU’s Next Days

Although Comcast is in the curious position of owning one-third of Disney’s Hulu service, this week they moved all of NBC and Bravo’s next-day programming off that platform and over to Peacock.

This makes a world of sense in that it allows Peacock to be more closely identified with popular NBCU shows like Saturday Night Live, which is surely a gateway drug for many viewers who ultimately make the switch to full-time streaming.

It may also be a way to finally jump start Peacock, whose subscriber numbers have languished compared to its rivals as it struggles to find an identity.

Given that much of that was due to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Peacock has a chance now to zag while the other SVODs are zigging.

Why It Matters

Let’s start with a little history lesson: Peacock was all set to launch during the 2020 Olympics, a strategy that made perfect sense. Then Covid happened and the Olympics didn’t, at which point they realized they really didn’t have much in the way of original programming that they could justifiably charge people for, so they launched Peacock as a free service—all you needed to do was pony up an email address.

And there their troubles began. 

There was indeed still a paid version of Peacock that showed, among other things, English Premier League soccer games. Only people signing up for the free version were never made aware that this was an option, or that a paid version even existed. (And by “people” I mean “people who are unlikely to read TVREV.”)

In fact, most people’s exposure to the fact that Peacock was a paid service came during the Olympics when they discovered that they needed to pay to watch certain events, which seemed punitive, and not in a “right, it’s actually a pay service” kind of way.

Which is one of the reasons Peacock’s subscriber numbers have been way behind everyone else’s—13 million paid subs plus another 14 million “monthly active users” who come via the FAST part of Peacock or via Comcast.

So some important lessons here, particularly because, as per our new report FASTs Are The New Cable, most all of the SVOD services are going to have to roll out their own FASTs too as they move beyond the US, Canada and Western Europe. 

Lesson One is that having all your eggs in one basket might not be a great idea. As in Paramount’s decision to keep Pluto TV as a separate brand, made, no doubt, in large part because it already had a strong brand identity, proved to be a wise one in that no one comes to Paramount+ wondering why they have to pay, and yet Paramount is still able to create synergy between Pluto TV and Paramount+, making use of the former to promote the latter’s original programming and spur subscriptions.

Compare that to Peacock, which has been struggling to get consumers to understand that there are indeed three different tiers, only one of which is free. 

Call this the “Amazon Dilemma” as Mr. Bezos and Friends also struggle with the fact that consumers have no idea why some shows are free and some require payment, while others are free, only with ads.

But then they figure that what they’re really paying for is the free two-day delivery and figure it’s not worth worrying about, versus Peacock which has no such palliative offering.

On the plus side (pun intended) NBCU has chosen not to be Yet Another HBO and its programming, shows like the Fresh Prince reboot, appeals to the sort of mass audience that is often ignored on streaming. 

Similarly, in contrast to its rivals at Warner Brothers Discovery, NBCU seems to be doubling down on movies, with early streaming windows giving Peacock viewers access to a wide range of Universal movies in addition to a whole passel of live sports (Big 10, NFL simulcasts), and now, the NBCU next-day programming.

In other words, a reason to subscribe and an identity all in one.

One final point: NBCU has a killer ad sales team and has been taking the lead in terms of how broadcast networks approach linear. While that is not going to be a reason for anyone to subscribe, it does promise that their ad experience will be on point and will not be a reason to unsubscribe once viewers get there.

What You Need To Do About It

If you are NBCU, I would obviously promote the hell out of the fact that you can now watch all your favorite NBC and Bravo shows on Peacock. But more than that, I would try and figure out a more well thought out plan to distinguish free Peacock from paid Peacock. 

If it is possible (and it may not be, for legal reasons around your relationship with Comcast) I would try to make Xumo your FAST. Move all those free Peacock users over to Xumo (along with the free content already on Peacock) and keep it as a separate brand that is part of the larger family—essentially what Paramount has done with Pluto TV. That way no one comes to Peacock and is offended when you tell them they actually need to pay to watch the thing they wanted to watch. Even if it is only $5/month.

Keep doubling down too on NBC-like fare, not HBO-like fare. The former has a much bigger audience and right now that’s a pretty unclaimed space in the streaming firmament.

2. Streaming Overtakes Cable, Not All Of Linear

Nielsen put out some numbers this week showing that streaming viewership has ever so slightly nudged out cable viewership, 34.8% to 34.4%.

And despite the fact that we are talking about four-tenths of one percent here—well within the margin of error—you would think the sky had come crashing down from the way The Overwhelming Media Narrative has quickly become “STREAMING SURPASSES CABLE TO WIN STREAMING WARS!”

This from the same crew that turned a subscriber drop of nine-tenths of one percent into NETFLIX SUFFERS MASSIVE SUBSCRIBER LOSSES this winter. 

So there’s that and there’s the fact that streaming is only beating out cable channels, not all of linear pay TV. 

Factor in broadcast, which is, of course, part of the linear pay TV experience, and linear pay TV viewing is 20 percentage points ahead of streaming. (21.2% to be exact.)

Why It Matters

Watching the Streaming Wars from an insider perspective has been a fascinating window into how misinformation spreads. 

People with limited understanding of a topic pick up on what appears, at first glance, to be a surprising statistic and then run with it. These people often work for publications or national news networks with far greater subscriber bases than traditional trade publications. 

And so the misinformation spreads.

Here it’s easy to pinpoint what happened. When regular people talk about “cable” they mean the entire linear pay TV offering, regardless of whether it comes from an actual cable company, satellite provider or telco or whether it is a cable or broadcast network.

When industry types talk about “cable” they mean cable TV networks as opposed to broadcast networks.

And so not being industry types, most reporters assumed that Nielsen’s use of the word “cable” meant “all linear pay TV.”

Easy enough mistake, albeit a sloppy one.

Which is too bad, because the most interesting stats about the TV industry—that people are watching both streaming and linear and that the “massive wave of cord cutting” we were promised has yet to materialize (switching to vMVPDs doesn’t count)--seems to get swept under the table because it’s nowhere near as dramatic.

Their loss.

What You Need To Do About It

If you write about the industry—ask someone before you run with a “this is too good to be true” headline. 

If nothing else, you’ll avoid angry emails from PR people.

If you are in the industry, then you need to prepare for the hybrid ecosystem. Linear pay TV isn’t growing, but it’s in a long slow decline—think AOL. Meaning that whether it is advertising or programming we need to be thinking across both distribution systems for the foreseeable future, while figuring out how to measure across both as well.