A year of Streaming for Peacock

Peacock, NBC's streaming app, is about to celebrate its first birthday, which means I won't be able to call it "new" anymore. We looked at HBO Max recently after it shed the "new" label, so as is now becoming customary, here's a look at how much Peacock managed to achieve in a year.

Downloads are a good metric to proxy demand, but with NBC's reach, they're not that hard to acquire. The real proxy for demand, in my book at least, is revenue.

I looked at Peacock recently as it ended May with the most revenue in a single month so far, but I have good news for those rooting for the flightless bird. Peacock ended June with even more revenue and stronger month-over-month growth.

We estimate that since its rollout, Peacock earned $18M in net revenue (or $25M before paying Apple and Google their fees). Not a bad haul for a brand new app from a TV channel.

Much of its growth started around February of this year and, much like HBO Max and Disney, is driven by exclusives.

What's next? Exclusive hits are the name of the game. This isn't very different than the old world of cable, but the main difference is that switching between apps isn't as easy as switching between channels. That's why we're seeing more focus on a small number of apps.

To continue growing, companies like NBC have to evolve how they look at content. HBO Max already did that, and the results are pretty good. For context, HBO Max brought in $51M of net revenue in June, according to our estimates. That's double Peacock's entire existence.

I know I'm comparing TV with movies, but now that HBO Max is streaming new releases, the line is blurring quickly.