📺 NBCUniversal Says Peacock Is a Success. Let’s Fact-Check the Feathers.

Cue the orchestral sting and slow-motion logo animation: Peacock is back on stage, being presented as NBCU’s crown jewel in the streaming wars. It’s colorful. It’s confident. It’s—according to internal earnings calls—soaring.

But if we zoom out from the PowerPoint slides and glossy promo reels, what we see is something more complicated than “success” or “failure.” What we see is a streamer with serious assets, some real wins—and even more strategic confusion.

Let’s start with the topline numbers:

• 36 million paid subscribers as of Q4 2024

• That’s a 29% YoY increase—credit where it’s due

• But it still trails far behind Netflix (282M), Disney+ (160M), and even Paramount+ (68M)

So yes, Peacock is growing. But in the high-stakes poker game of streaming, it’s the player still buying chips with IOUs.

It’s still largely U.S.-only, heavily tethered to Comcast bundling, and hasn’t yet delivered a breakout moment that forces the competition to take cover.

💰 The Cost of “Growth”? A Billion-Dollar Burn Rate

NBCU’s Peacock experiment isn’t cheap. Far from it.

• Q4 2024 losses: $372 million

• Estimated full-year losses: $1.3 billion

• Ad-supported tier usage: 84% of subs

That last number? It’s often framed as a win. Peacock proudly claims the highest ad-tier adoption rate in the industry.

But let’s unpack that: what it really means is that Peacock’s revenue depends almost entirely on ads, and those ads need to be monetized at scale, without alienating viewers already frustrated by ad loads in digital environments.

NBCU’s answer? More live events, more cross-promotion, more tentpoles. From exclusive NFL playoff games to WrestleMania XL to Olympics coverage, they’re leaning hard into “live moment” acquisition spikes.

The results? Mixed. Viewership surges, sign-ups increase, then reality kicks in—and retention dips.

🧠 One Platform™: A Brilliant Idea Tripping Over Its Execution

Enter: One Platform™—NBCU’s attempt to unify ad sales across broadcast, digital, streaming, and CTV in one allegedly seamless experience.

In theory? It’s genius.
In practice? It’s... still working out the kinks.

Advertisers love the idea: buy once, get presence across The Voice, Peacock, Bravo, and Telemundo. But many media buyers privately describe the actual experience as “cluttered, fragmented, and too reliant on NBCU inventory.”

The integration with OpenAP is a step forward. So is the push toward alternative currencies and new attribution models. But these aren’t magic wands—they’re infrastructure bets, and infrastructure takes time.

One CTV strategist we spoke with (who asked not to be named) put it this way: “It’s not that One Platform doesn’t work. It’s that it doesn’t yet work like buyers need it to.”

There’s real potential here—but also a real credibility gap.

🧟‍♂️ Ad Placement and the FAST Channel Confusion

Let’s talk about where those ads are actually ending up.

More than a few brands have raised eyebrows after discovering their premium CTV campaigns showing up in places they didn’t expect—like obscure FAST channels, niche streaming apps, or mid-roll slotted next to third-tier reality content that no one at the agency had heard of.

This isn’t necessarily fraud. It’s not even always NBCU’s fault. It’s the result of a wildly fragmented CTV supply chain, where audience targeting, bundling, and syndication deals create a murky programmatic soup.

Peacock may promise premium. But when a $60 CPM lands on an idle screen or low-engagement stream, brands rightfully ask: “Why are we paying first-run prices for recycled impressions?”

🗃️ Syndication Is a Strategy — But It’s Not a Destination

Here’s the thing: NBCU has a goldmine of legacy content.
But too often, Peacock leans on it like a crutch.

The Office. Parks and Rec. Dateline.
We get it. We love it. But this isn’t how you win a streaming war in 2025.

Yes, Poker Face is a breakout. The Traitors found a following. But there’s no Stranger Things. No Last of Us. No Baby Yoda.

Peacock hasn’t delivered a moment that forces its way into pop culture dominance.
Which is what they need.

Even Brave New World, once promoted as a prestige swing, got canceled and buried.

Meanwhile, HBO, Apple, and even Amazon are churning out must-watch drama and genre programming with international legs. Peacock’s slate still feels like NBC+, not a disruptive entertainment brand.

🎤 Final Thought: This Isn’t a Flop—But It’s Not a Hit Either

Peacock is neither a disaster nor a darling. It’s a mid-tier streamer with serious potential, major infrastructure, and a confused sense of self.

NBCU has the tools. The reach. The content library. The tech investment. But it’s playing three games at once: legacy TV, ad-supported streaming, and prestige content—and it’s not fully winning any of them yet.

Until Peacock picks a lane, doubles down, and invests accordingly, it’s going to remain what it is now:

Cable’s ghost, dressed in streaming clothes, whispering about “transformation” while everyone else is already three quarters into the race.