Peacock Turns Profit 6 Years After Launch—With World Cup Bump

After six years of operation and plenty of criticism, despite a large array of top-tier live sports, Peacock is finally a profitable entity. 

Comcast said Thursday that the streaming service at least reached profitability in the second quarter of 2026, boosted in part by the early portion of Telemundo’s Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA men’s World Cup, also streamed on Peacock. 

During the quarter, Peacock generated $1.9 billion in revenue and earnings of $189 million, while also rising to 48 million subscribers, an increase of 2 million from the first quarter. While that latest subscriber total still significantly trails many other general entertainment streaming competitors such as Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, and Paramount+, Comcast lauded the service’s continued progress, calling it a “milestone event.” 

“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,” said Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh. 

“The factors at work in managing the Peacock business alongside the other assets in the media segment, which we’ve long talked about as being the real objective, not Peacock profitability unto itself, are paying off,” he said. 

Peacock is a core element of the distribution for all of NBC Sports’ top sports content, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, Olympics, and Premier League. 

While Comcast warned that future Peacock profitability will still “vary quarter by quarter,” more robust, World Cup-related results are expected in the third-quarter report in October. The soccer tournament culminated Sunday in record-level viewership on both Telemundo and Fox, the event’s English-language rights holder in the U.S.

Split Talk 

Comcast, meanwhile, also touted the planned separation of its connectivity businesses from NBCUniversal, parent company of NBC Sports. The recently announced move, dramatically reversing the company’s strategy early this year, is designed in part to help provide greater investor return as Comcast stock has been largely flat over the last 14 years.

“We’ve talked with our key constituencies, employees at every level, and most of our key partners, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive,” Comcast chairman and co-CEO Brian Roberts said of the split. “I feel more positive and energized today than I was on the day we announced it. … This structure gives both companies the freedom to pursue the priorities that matter most to their futures.”

Within that forthcoming split, which will take about a year to complete, there is no defined plan for Comcast Spectacor, parent company of assets such as the NHL’s Flyers and Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

Overall, Comcast reported $29.94 billion in revenue, down 1.2% from the comparable period last year, and adjusted earnings of $8.9 billion, down 13%. Both measures still beat Wall Street expectations as the company’s core connectivity business goes through a “strategic reset.”