Peacock subscribers—and losses—climb at NBCUniversal

Newsflash: running a streaming service is expensive.

NBCUniversal-owned streamer Peacock lost $704 million in the first quarter of 2023, the company reported today, as the service continues to invest heavily to grow its subscriber base.

The losses mark a substantial increase from the $456 million lost in the same quarter a year earlier, and are part of what NBCUniversal has previously told investors will be an expensive year. Executives have said they expect losses from the company’s streaming investment to peak at around $3 billion this year before improving; in Q4 2022, Peacock reported that it lost $978 million.

Count ’em up: Peacock counted 22 million subscribers by quarter’s end, a 60% year over year increase and two million more than in the prior quarter. That two-million subscriber increase, though, represented a slowdown from Q4 2022, during which Peacock added five million subscribers.

Get that bag: While Peacock isn’t profitable, its total revenues increased 45% year over year to $685 million, which Jason Armstrong, Comcast's CFO and treasurer, said was due to a growth in its paid subscriber base. Earlier this year, the company stopped allowing new users to sign up for Peacock’s free tier, part of a strategic shift to paid plans.

Peacock advertising revenues in particular are up 90% year over year, Armstrong said—although that’s excluding the Olympics and Super Bowl, two of last year’s biggest advertising events, which both aired exclusively on NBC properties.