Comcast announced Thursday that its NBC-owned streaming platform, Peacock, has reached a record number of subscribers, with the World Cup playing a significant role in driving that growth.
During the summer, Peacock carried Telemundo’s Spanish-language broadcast of the World Cup. Because the tournament was held in North America, a large number of matches aired during primetime hours, pushing viewership to record highs across all affiliated networks.
In its quarterly financial report covering April through June, Comcast revealed that Peacock added two million subscribers during that period, bringing the platform’s total subscriber count to 48 million. The quarter also marked the first time in the service’s six-year run that it turned a profit.
Revenue for the quarter climbed to roughly $1.9 billion, while earnings came in at $189 million — both figures surpassing analyst projections.
Co-CEO Mike Cavanaugh cautioned that profitability could still fluctuate from one quarter to the next. However, he expressed optimism that Peacock’s sports programming lineup — which includes the NFL, MLB, NBA, the Olympics, and the Premier League — will help maintain steady performance going forward.
“In six years, it’s gotten to incredible scale at a pace that we’re very proud of and very much dovetails with the strategy for how we build and program NBC itself,” Cavanagh said.
