Peacock (Streaming Service)

[Nick]

Peacock AFAIK isn't on Nielsen.

Either way, I think you're discounting how how good Google trends are at actually acting as a surrogate for ratings on streaming. Multiple streamers use what's basically a more sophisticated version of it to track competitors and efficacy of their own marketing campaigns.

EDIT: My main hope is that we move past the idea that just because something isn't talked about in your circles doesn't mean it isn't popular. Lots of things determine popularity of a show, and some things that make it hard to get a representative sample from just friends and family, like geographic location, are more influential than they're often given credit for.

I want to be clear, when I say, "in my circle", that's not code for me saying "in my bubble" or anything. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on youtube, rotten tomatoes, etc looking at entertainment reviews, looking at what's coming out. I hear about a lot of things that my friends and family don't like and I watch some of that myself. My point is, if I consume the amount of entertainment news that I do and i'm not hearing anything, it just seems to me like it's not something that is widely known about.

Now if this was on Netflix, I think this show would be blowing up, possibly the #1 show of the week. People on Netflix love true-crime stories. I just am not seeing where anyone is going crazy for this show right now. It's probably performing solid with people already subscribed, but i'm not sure it brought in that many new subscribers (although if any Peacock show did, it was probably this one). So what am I saying? I'm saying it was probably a mild success for the service it was on, but you put something like this on Netflix, Amazon or even Apple TV+ (since everyone who owns apple products has the service), the show probably makes a big splash and gets everyone talking about it in it's debut week.

 

[Nico]

Nick I agree with you. I had to constantly promote Girls 5EVA and Rutherford Falls to my friend groups. I know it’s a different thread, but I really think that Peacock merging with Paramount+ through Universal/CBS merger would be beneficial to comcast.

 

[quinnmac000]

Nick I agree with you. I had to constantly promote Girls 5EVA and Rutherford Falls to my friend groups. I know it’s a different thread, but I really think that Peacock merging with Paramount+ through Universal/CBS merger would be beneficial to comcast.

NBCUniversal Wraps Record Upfront, Topping $7B With Rate & Volume Gains; Peacock Books $500M; 85% Of Super Bowl Spots Sold Or In Talks

NBCUniversal has closed a record-setting upfront, improving over 2019 levels with an overall tally north of $7 billion.

deadline.com

One key initiative for NBCU hit the market as planned amid all of the uncertainty in 2020: Peacock. The streaming service, which has a premium subscription tier but is principally a free, ad-supported offering, launched a year ago across national platforms. It collected $500 million in net new commitments in the upfront, compared with $100 million from initial launch sponsors, NBCU said. The service’s CPMs are 50% higher than Hulu’s, according to a person familiar with the figures.

Peacock has move influence than most people here are thinking based on the about of impressions they are pushing especially if its higher than Hulu.

Not every company needs to do the same strategy which is why I'm entertained.

Also regarding Girls5eva and Rutherford Falls. I see daily more and mroe people bringing the shows on reddit and then going back to watch Saved by the Bell.....the method they are doing in which people are coming back to watch the shows rather than binging it the day it comes out is just as good as people rushing to watch it opening day. They still get the same number of impressions and for Comcast, they still get the ad money.

 

[Nico]

NBCUniversal Wraps Record Upfront, Topping $7B With Rate & Volume Gains; Peacock Books $500M; 85% Of Super Bowl Spots Sold Or In Talks

NBCUniversal has closed a record-setting upfront, improving over 2019 levels with an overall tally north of $7 billion.

deadline.com

One key initiative for NBCU hit the market as planned amid all of the uncertainty in 2020: Peacock. The streaming service, which has a premium subscription tier but is principally a free, ad-supported offering, launched a year ago across national platforms. It collected $500 million in net new commitments in the upfront, compared with $100 million from initial launch sponsors, NBCU said. The service’s CPMs are 50% higher than Hulu’s, according to a person familiar with the figures.

Peacock has move influence than most people here are thinking based on the about of impressions they are pushing especially if its higher than Hulu.

Not every company needs to do the same strategy which is why I'm entertained.

Also regarding Girls5eva and Rutherford Falls. I see daily more and mroe people bringing the shows on reddit and then going back to watch Saved by the Bell.....the method they are doing in which people are coming back to watch the shows rather than binging it the day it comes out is just as good as people rushing to watch it opening day. They still get the same number of impressions and for Comcast, they still get the ad money.

Totally get that, but that’s conflating ad revenue and viewership. They are offering a new “streamlined and pristine location for brands.” But how long will brands keep paying, if viewership stagnates? This was further down in the article and speaks to my point. They are clearly interested in doing deals to increase/bolster their presence and content. I think inevitably, they will need to merge with someone large enough to really make an impact.

“Peacock had initially been tied to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed to this year by Covid-19. Even without that setback, the service, for all of its demonstrated appeal to advertisers, has not come blazing out of the gate. As of March, it had 42 million sign-ups and 14 million monthly active users. Committed to the long term, though, NBCU has continued to feed bigger programming into the platform, swinging a deal with the WWE to incorporate the wrestling outfit’s streaming service into Peacock. Other strong performers have included Premier League soccer and The Office, and this month the sequel to animated hit Boss Baby became the platform’s first day-and-date movie release. A long-awaited carriage deal with Amazon Fire TV was announced last month, filling a key hole in the distribution map.”

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Peacock I think may be the first to fail due to the lack of interest regarding the Olympics this year due to the pandemic. I know I’m not watching, I know others who aren’t, and none of them were going to go to Peacock to watch it either to begin with. I see a merger with Viacom happening in order to stay afloat, but it’s clear if they’re licenscing 30 Rock back to Netflix, animated films stay on Netflix, they clearly aren’t profiting much off of Peacock so they need to outsource elsewhere to gain revenue it seems.

 

[Nick]

I know this it's probably more likely that Comcast just buy Viacom and then they can really bulk up Peacock a bit more.

But there is another route that would be far less expensive for Comcast. It would be a situation much like Comcast is in with Hulu where they basically say to ViacomCBS, "Hey, you guys could probably use some help with your service, we'd like to bulk up more as well, etc, etc" and then from there Peacock and Paramount+ sort of at the very least maybe not become one, but maybe they could work on a package similar to the Disney Bundle where they could charge however much for a month/year/etc and people would be signed up to both services.

That would help out both services a lot imo, although in the end, I think Comcast is just gonna go for buying them out.

Totally get that, but that’s conflating ad revenue and viewership. They are offering a new “streamlined and pristine location for brands.” But how long will brands keep paying, if viewership stagnates? This was further down in the article and speaks to my point. They are clearly interested in doing deals to increase/bolster their presence and content. I think inevitably, they will need to merge with someone large enough to really make an impact.

“Peacock had initially been tied to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed to this year by Covid-19. Even without that setback, the service, for all of its demonstrated appeal to advertisers, has not come blazing out of the gate. As of March, it had 42 million sign-ups and 14 million monthly active users. Committed to the long term, though, NBCU has continued to feed bigger programming into the platform, swinging a deal with the WWE to incorporate the wrestling outfit’s streaming service into Peacock. Other strong performers have included Premier League soccer and The Office, and this month the sequel to animated hit Boss Baby became the platform’s first day-and-date movie release. A long-awaited carriage deal with Amazon Fire TV was announced last month, filling a key hole in the distribution map.”

Yeah, also, Hulu doesn't have a free option, which is why there's so much extra advertising on peacock. Hulu has an ad-plan supported and an ad-free plan. Hulu has a much higher amount of people than Peacock who buy into the ad-supported and ad-free plans, so again, that means that the ad-money for Peacock is much more needed than on hulu.

 

[quinnmac000]

I know this it's probably more likely that Comcast just buy Viacom and then they can really bulk up Peacock a bit more.

But there is another route that would be far less expensive for Comcast. It would be a situation much like Comcast is in with Hulu where they basically say to ViacomCBS, "Hey, you guys could probably use some help with your service, we'd like do bulk up more, etc, etc" and then from there Peacock and Paramount+ sort of at the very least maybe not become one, but maybe they could work on a package similar to the Disney Bundle where they could charge however much for a month/year/etc and people would be signed up to both services.

That would help out both services a lot imo, although in the end, I think Comcast is just gonna go for buying them out.


Yeah, also, Hulu doesn't have a free option, which is why there's so much extra advertising on peacock. Hulu has an ad-plan supported and an ad-free plan. Hulu has a much higher percentage than Peacock of people who buy into the ad-free plan, so again, that means that the ad-money for Peacock is much more needed than on hulu.

'

Totally get that, but that’s conflating ad revenue and viewership. They are offering a new “streamlined and pristine location for brands.” But how long will brands keep paying, if viewership stagnates? This was further down in the article and speaks to my point. They are clearly interested in doing deals to increase/bolster their presence and content. I think inevitably, they will need to merge with someone large enough to really make an impact.

“Peacock had initially been tied to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed to this year by Covid-19. Even without that setback, the service, for all of its demonstrated appeal to advertisers, has not come blazing out of the gate. As of March, it had 42 million sign-ups and 14 million monthly active users. Committed to the long term, though, NBCU has continued to feed bigger programming into the platform, swinging a deal with the WWE to incorporate the wrestling outfit’s streaming service into Peacock. Other strong performers have included Premier League soccer and The Office, and this month the sequel to animated hit Boss Baby became the platform’s first day-and-date movie release. A long-awaited carriage deal with Amazon Fire TV was announced last month, filling a key hole in the distribution map.”

Comcast asked both WB and Viacom prior to launch of HBO Max and Paramount+ to partner up....they both refused at the time. There are talks for an international service right now combined due the fact Viacom and Sky have a lot of joint ventures together in Europe and adding in Sky's programming will be a strong catalog unlike Peacock but that's not guaranteed.

As for Comcast buying Viacom, after Sun Valley people talked about Brian Roberts meeting with Shari Redstone but both have said they didn't meet then and additionally it was said that Comcast is looking more so at Lionsgate as an easier target that they would not have to divest.....the main goal for Viacom according to the WSJ is the children's properties as the rest of the content overlap a lot with NBCUniversal already.

Viewership = ad revenue. No company will pay money if the numbers aren't going well. The fact that they got 400 million compared to the initial launch shows that advertisers are happy with the numbers of metrics coming out.

 

[TheGentTrent]

Am I the only one who wants all these streaming services to fail so that we can go back to the old days of having everything under one umbrella? #aguycandream

 

[RevFreako]

I never said anything against Dr. Death. I actually opened my post by saying I was hearing a lot of good things online about the show. I've searched it multiple times. Doesn't translate to a watch though. Dr. Death was a paid ad on many social media platforms (which is unusual for Peacock to spend that type of ad-money), which is why I feel like so many searched it up, especially since the show is based on real events.

I would probably have another think on this one. Peacock has done major blitzes on several of their miniseries, most particularly thr Gacy doc.

 

[Nick]

I would probably have another think on this one. Peacock has done major blitzes on several of their miniseries, most particularly thr Gacy doc.

I would hardly call what they do "media blitzes" unless you watch NBC or their related channels a lot. I've literally never heard of the "Gacy doc" so they didn't do an overly great job with that - of course I can't remember much of what was going on back during the week of March 25th (I think Falcon and the Winter Soldier had just started, so this was likely taking a back seat to it in pretty much all forms of media).

If I had to guess something that will actually be popular for them coming up, it'll be Hart to Heart: An interview show starring Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart is extremely popular and literally anything with a big name and/or big IP is what this service needs.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Not sure if this kinda commentary belongs here but since I just watched a few episodes of it and it’s on the service.....

Fallon is rough rn. Not an opinion many don’t already hold, but I watch him on and off prior to Covid especially if guests were on I like. Not many shows for me right now so I caught up on his past week last night, his jokes were just flat out bad. I was kinda shocked. His monologue is always unimpressive but it’s not like the writing was overtly poor.

One episode you could barely hear laughs during some segments. Literally a full, 100% capacity, no mask audience.

Seth Meyers on the other hand, continues to deliver. I can’t imagine he doesn’t take over for Fallon eventually.

 

[Nick]

Not sure if this kinda commentary belongs here but since I just watched a few episodes of it and it’s on the service.....

Fallon is rough rn. Not an opinion many don’t already hold, but I watch him on and off prior to Covid especially if guests were on I like. Not many shows for me right now so I caught up on his past week last night, his jokes were just flat out bad. I was kinda shocked. His monologue is always unimpressive but it’s not like the writing was overtly poor.

One episode you could barely hear laughs during some segments. Literally a full, 100% capacity, no mask audience.

Seth Meyers on the other hand, continues to deliver. I can’t imagine he doesn’t take over for Fallon eventually.

Seth Meyers knows what he does well and he just absolutely hits it out of the park every show. That's why you don't see Seth standing up awkwardly doing a monologue. He knows that's not in his bag and he's not good at it (I think he tried it when the show started and it was real bad). Him just behind the desk where he's comfortable doing his thing and putting Fallon to shame as far as being a good interviewer and keeping the conversation going in a way where he actually cares what they have to say and doesn't cut the guest off and do the whole awkward laugh thing.

I really wish we would see a change like that sooner than later. It would've been the perfect timing right now, too - we could give Michael Che Seth's show!

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Seth Meyers knows what he does well and he just absolutely hits it out of the park every show. That's why you don't see Seth standing up awkwardly doing a monologue. He knows that's not in his bag and he's not good at it (I think he tried it when the show started and it was real bad). Him just behind the desk where he's comfortable doing his thing and putting Fallon to shame as far as being a good interviewer and keeping the conversation going in a way where he actually cares what they have to say and doesn't cut the guest off and do the whole awkward laugh thing.

I really wish we would see a change like that sooner than later. It would've been the perfect timing right now, too - we could give Michael Che Seth's show!

I’m down for all of this!!! Fallon was the most unwatchable I’ve seen him, and I don’t hate his show. Love The Roots, Steve Higgins, his set and the whole aesthetic but Jimmy I think is past his prime in this spot. He should get some variety show for Peacock or host a game show, which I think he’d be good at, then let Seth be prime time. Seth’s show I highly recommend for people who enjoy late night but haven’t seen him really.

 

[Nick]

I’m down for all of this!!! Fallon was the most unwatchable I’ve seen him, and I don’t hate his show. Love The Roots, Steve Higgins, his set and the whole aesthetic but Jimmy I think is past his prime in this spot. He should get some variety show for Peacock or host a game show, which I think he’d be good at, then let Seth be prime time. Seth’s show I highly recommend for people who enjoy late night but haven’t seen him really.

Jimmy would've been great taking over for Ellen's show. That's the type of thing right in HIS wheelhouse.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Jimmy would've been great taking over for Ellen's show. That's the type of thing right in HIS wheelhouse.

Agreed. Peacock can do something like that I’m sure though, but they don’t seem to invest a ton into it or big stars are not willing to do exclusives yet on the service, but a Variety “Ellen” like show would do well.

 

[quinnmac000]

Reasons why I'm not worried about Peacock.....

Netflix bleeds subscribers in US and Canada, with no sign of recovery

Streaming group issues disappointing forecasts for third-quarter customer growth.

arstechnica.com

 

[Nick]

Reasons why I'm not worried about Peacock.....

Netflix bleeds subscribers in US and Canada, with no sign of recovery

Streaming group issues disappointing forecasts for third-quarter customer growth.

arstechnica.com

Netflix lost 466K subs domestically roughly. Internationally though, they gained millions, so Netflix still continues to gain even when they lose. Also, Netflix is damn near mature stateside and Peacock is no where close to it, so the two cases aren't exactly 1:1.

 

[Nick]

So.... I now completely understand how this service sort of got screwed over a bit by the Olympics being delayed a year. Now that the Olympics have started, Peacock is being pushed hard and there are certain highly anticipated things, such as the USA Basketball games, that i've had to actually go to Peacock to watch live. They're gonna have this again with the Winter Olympics next year, too.

I've used Peacock more over the past few days alone than I have the entire past year. I even signed up for a Premium account for the month since i'm actually consistently using the service at the moment and tbh, definitely want to watch Dr. Death. Now I already cancelled my subscription so make no mistake, it is only for one month at the moment, but we'll see. I'm not a big fan of the service interface. Is there a way to just look at Peacock Originals? Is there a way to just look at what's streaming live?

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Real missed opportunity to create an insanely interesting course for the skateboarding section. Someone should make a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game show where actual pro skaters skate across recreations of famous video game skate courses.

 

[Legacy]

Real missed opportunity to create an insanely interesting course for the skateboarding section. Someone should make a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game show where actual pro skaters skate across recreations of famous video game skate courses.

A few of the skate parks in the games are direct recreations. And the Park Editor allows you to make remarkably close recreations.

Honestly, I’m a touch surprised/disappointed that Activision didn’t do an “Olympic Park” DLC for 1+2. But it may be in the exchange already.