After a yearlong delay, the much-anticipated Tokyo Olympic Games took place in late July. NBCUniversal aired programming across its broadcast, cable, and digital properties — notably Peacock. Antenna data indicates that the Tokyo Olympic Games were Peacock’s largest paid Sign-up driver since launch.
Antenna has observed recent spikes in Peacock user acquisition around exclusive WWE events and The Boss Baby: Family Business, a major day-and-date film release. For context, the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games garnered 108% more paid Sign-ups to Peacock than WWE’s Wrestlemania 37.
During its launch period (07/15/20–08/14/20), Peacock earned 6% share of Premium SVOD Sign-ups; the service claimed 21% share of Sign-ups in July 2021. This marks the first month where Peacock has commanded >10% share of Premium SVOD Sign-ups.
Time will allow us to assess the loyalty of users who Signed-up to Peacock around the Tokyo Olympic Games. Users who subscribed to Peacock when scripted series The Office arrived on the platform were better retained three months later than the benchmark (defined as average Survival of users who joined [service] in previous 8 weeks, on the same days of the week as respective [content release]).
Perhaps a more relevant comparison, Antenna finds that users who joined Paramount+ (then CBS All Access) around Super Bowl LV were 5pts more loyal on average vs. the benchmark for that service.
Additional Insight:
- Plan Mix: Over 80% of paid Peacock Sign-ups in July 2021 chose the Premium ($4.99/mo with ads) plan tier — an increase from the month prior, where approximately 75% of Sign-ups opted for the same tier. Note that in some instances, operators can monetize cheaper plan tiers more effectively with supplemental ad revenue, which Antenna does not currently measure.
- Distributor Mix (billing relationship): From January 2021 through June 2021, 17% of paid Peacock Sign-ups came via Roku. In July 2021, Roku’s share of paid Peacock Sign-ups remained stable at 17%. Interestingly, NBCU and Roku teamed to bring an immersive Tokyo Olympic Games hub to Roku devices (link).
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Correction: an earlier version of this post indicated that from July 2020 through June 2021, 11% of Peacock paid Sign-ups came via Roku. While this is technically accurate, it is potentially misleading, as Peacock was not available on Roku devices until months after its July 2020 nationwide launch. We have updated the timeframe to reflect a more comparable benchmark — January 2021 to June 2021.
Brendan Brady is a Content Strategy Associate at Antenna, a measurement and analytics company providing insight into purchase behavior and subscription metrics across the new media landscape.
