Peacock Lost $1.7 Billion Last Year, Double What It Lost The Year Before

Variety reports that NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock lost $1.7 billion in 2021, which is more than double what it lost the year before. The service, which includes WWE programming as well as Universal’s film library and most NBC shows, is entering its third year.

Comcast revealed in their Q4 earnings report that Peacock brought in $778 million in revenue, with the adjust $1.7 billion loss. It’s more revenue than 2020 ($118 million) but also a much bigger lost, as 2020 had an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) loss of $663 million.

CEO Brian Roberts said that the service has 9 million paid subscribers as of the end of last year. This is the first time they’ve announced how many paid subscribers they have. They are approaching an average revenue per customer of $10 a month, including ad revenue. Roberts noted that this is “without much focus on paid subscriber growth.” Peacock also has another 7 million monthly “highly engaged bundle subscribers” via Comcast Xfinity and other distributors. Those services offer Peacock Premium at no extra cost. Peacock has 24.5 million monthly active accounts, as well, but they haven’t reported that number consistently. It was recently said that they have “more than 20 million” active monthly accounts at the end of Q2 2021.

Peacock spent $1.5 billion on content in 2021. Comcast CFO Mike Cavanagh said the company expects to lose another $2.5-3 billion in 2022 as it plans to double its investment in programming. Comcast is hoping to spend $5 billion annually on content over the next several years.

Comcast previously expected to spend around $2 billion during 2020 and 2021. The adjusted net loss was $2.36 billion. They are expecting to break even by 2025, but Cavanagh said that could change.