Peacock Finally Sees Success and Profit

 After six long years of trimming budgets and doing its best to compete with its larger streaming peers, Peacock may finally be coming into its own. With a second consecutive profitable quarter now under its belt, entertainment attorney Brandon Blake, at Blake & Wang P.A., looks at what Peacock is finally doing right.

                                                                      Brandon Blake  

Subscriber and Profit Uptick

Peacock posted a pre-tax profit of $261M for this year’s Q3, with total revenue reaching $1.8B, up from $1.4B last year. That’s quite a change from the $217M loss it faced in the same period last year, and follows on from its Q2 profit of $189M. It has also seen subscriber numbers grow to 48M, up from 41M in the same period last year, although it is flat from Q2. 


Much of the Q2 profit uptick was due to the $440M in incremental media revenue the FIFA World Cup games brought it. Some of this quarter’s profit, roughly $224M, would be holdover revenue from the final games. Other contributors would be a recent subscription increase and, perhaps most importantly, lower programming costs. 


While they are warning that this progress may get bumpy in the next few quarters, it’s still a promising sign for an often-neglected streamer. 


                                                             Blake & Wang Lawyer 

Less Strong for Comcast

Its Comcast parent, however, saw its overall studios revenue fall by 1.1%, reaching $2.96B and an adjusted EBITDA of $402M. That’s with contributions to Universal for The Odyssey's remarkable success and the breakout of Obsession for Focus Features included. We also learned that the spinoff of its cable assets into Versant will be fully complete and separated by the middle of next year. 


But returning to Peacock, NBCUniversal will now be looking at bundling to further grow the streamer’s reach. It also recently signed a multi-year deal with YouTube to offer Peacock to premium subscribers. 


Peacock has had potential, but poor results, for a long time now. It’s good to see it managing to find a path forward to growth and profit, even amid the larger restructuring underway at Comcast around its entertainment assets.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tron Turns in a Lackluster Weekend

Image
  Another decade, another Tron film that has failed to grip the box office quite the way that Hollywood would like it to. Despite missing its box office projections, however, the film turned in a credible opening weekend supported by some strong holdovers. Here’s the box office latest from Brandon Blake, best entertainment lawyer in los angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.                                                                              Brandon Blake Crossing $60M Although earlier projections had foreseen a higher start, Tron: Ares managed to add $60.5M to Disney’s box office kitty, with $27M of that coming from offshore starts at the international box office. Interestingly, the movie is performing better across both audience and critical ratings than its predecessor. ...
Read more

Canal+ Buys into French Movie Theaters

Image
  The production and distribution arm of Canal+, StudioCanal, will be taking a stake in UGC’s exhibition network. Covering 55 theaters in both Belgium and France, UGC is currently one of the most influential theater chains in the area. To share the facts, we have Brandon Blake, best entertainment lawyers in Los Angeles  at Blake & Wang P.A.   Brandon Blake   Minority Stake   Under the negotiations, Canal+ would assume a 34% minority stake in the group, with the further option to take full control in 2028. Under the UGC banner is the UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles in Paris, one of the world’s most visited cinemas. It would also give them a stake in UGC’s extensive film and TV library. Canal+ already controls one of Europe’s largest film catalogs.   Growing StudioCanal   For Canal+, this not only gives them an expanded stake in the cinema and theatrical exhibition space, but could also be a new way to grow StudioCanal’s influence and ...
Read more

An Anime Win for Sony with Demon Slayer

Image
 There’s some good news (finally) for both Sony and Crunchyroll as we see one of the most successful anime openings to date from Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle . With all the details about this new win, we have Brandon Blake, the top entertainment law firm Los Angeles at Blake & Wang P.A.                                                                    Brandon Blake A New Record Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle saw a magnificent opening weekend, bringing in somewhere in the range of $70M over its opening weekend. This also earned it the 6th best opening for September, the best on record for an anime movie. It’s also the best opening Sony has seen in the last two years, as well as a first for Crunchyroll. It’s estimated that 4.5M people have seen the film to date.   It’s a particularly impressiv...
Read more