Friday, 28 April 2023, 5:30 am Press Release: Parrot Analytics
While all eyes will be on the fallout of ex-NBCUniversal
CEO Jeff Shell’s abrupt departure, Parrot Analytics has
analyzed where NBCUniversal and Peacock stand in the fight
for consumer attention.
By several metrics, Peacock
had its best quarter ever in Q1 2023. It hit a new high in
US demand share for streaming originals, with the debut of
Poker Face and Season 2 of Bel-Air both
setting new records for peak US demand for the platform.
Parrot Analytics’ Contention Valuation analysis has found
that Poker Face is a powerful subscriber acquisition
driver for Peacock.
However, questions remain about
Comcast’s endgame with both Peacock and NBCUniversal as a
whole. Can a major SVOD succeed with demand mostly driven by
library titles like Peacock? Only one of the top 25 titles
on Peacock with US audiences was a Peacock Original
(Poker Face). How much more money is Comcast CEO
Brian Roberts willing to part with before Peacock turns a
profit? The streamer is set to lose $3B in 2023, after a
$2.5B loss in 2022.
NBCUniversal still has one
of the most in-demand and valuable TV libraries in the
industry. The company has been successfully leveraging this
to both increase Peacock’s paid subscribers, which now
stands around 20 million, and keep said subscribers on the
platform.
If Comcast is serious about its long
term streaming ambitions, it must weigh its two most likely
expansion plans. Buying out Disney’s ownership stake in
Hulu is likely to cost nearly $20B, and would probably put
an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery or Paramount Global
off the table. But scaling via taking over Hulu or M&A
with a competitor is likely necessary if Comcast wants to be
a top player in the streaming era long
term.
Peacock Originals Rising — US, Q1
2023
Peacock
Originals hit their highest ever demand share in Q1 2023,
accounting for 3.3% of US demand for original
series.
While Peacock’s share of demand for
original series is still lower than other major streamers,
its current share represents a 200% increase versus two
years ago (1.1% in Q1 2021).
Demand for original
content is a key leading indicator of subscriber growth, and
Peacock more than doubled its paid subscriber count from Q4
2021 to Q4 2022.
Peacock’s originals share moved
up this quarter largely due to the success of two shows:
Poker Face and Bel-Air.
The debut of
Poker Face (peak of 27.1x more demand than the
average show in the US) and the second season of
Bel-Air (peak of 25.9x) saw the two highest US demand
peaks for any Peacock Original. These were significantly
higher than previous top Peacock Originals The Lost
Symbol (17.2x peak demand) in 2021 and Brave New
World (15.0x) in 2020.
Corporate
Demand Share — US, Q1 2023
Corporate
demand share assesses the long-term viability of the top
media companies as they look to consolidate their original
content’s availability exclusively onto their own
platforms.
However, with Wall Street’s mandate to
focus back on profits, this view of the entertainment
landscape can also be used to assess which companies have
the most valuable content to license out, rebooting one of
the original revenue streams in the TV business. It can
effectively help value a conglomerate’s legacy and library
content in aggregate.
NBCUniversal-originated series
accounted for one tenth of all US TV demand in the first
quarter of 2023. This makes it one of the five largest
corporations when it comes to TV demand ownership in the
US.
As of Q1 2023, NBCUniversal was ahead of
Netflix’s 8.3%, but trails its legacy media competitors
Disney (20.0%), Warner Bros. Discovery (17.2%), and
Paramount Global (12.5%) in this crucial
category.
This 10% corporate demand share is still
highly valuable to Comcast, especially if CEO Brian Roberts
is looking to either offload NBCUniversal or acquire
Paramount or Warner Bros. Discovery in the coming years.
Either combination would position the combined entity ahead
of Disney in US corporate demand share for TV
content.
Total Catalog Demand Share —
US, Q1 2023
While
demand for original content drives subscription growth,
library content is key for customer retention, an
increasingly crucial element of all streaming strategies as
the market matures and consumers are offered more choice and
easier ways to cancel than ever.
The total catalog
demand share data is a good indicator of which SVODs
consumers are most likely to use as a default ‘streaming
home.’
Peacock’s total catalog demand share grew
in Q1 2023, up from an average of 7.1% for the full year
2022.
Peacock is largely used as the home of
NBCUniversal’s vast library. In fact of the top 25 series
available on Peacock, only one was a Peacock Original
(Poker Face), while 13 were Universal TV produced
series.
Taking NBC next day broadcast series off of
Hulu and placing them exclusively on Peacock is proving to
be a good subscriber retention strategy for the platform.
Saturday Night Live, The Voice, Law &
Order: SVU, and Chicago Fire all ranked among the
top ten series available on Peacock in Q1
2023.
