Peacock Soars to $1 Billion in Ad Commitments

Peacock is spreading its feathers.

NBCUniversal’s streaming service booked $1 billion in upfront ad revenue this year, doubling its 2021 total of $500 million.

The network has sought to grow Peacock through major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and the Olympics, both of which were on NBC and Peacock in February. 

The service also added WWE last year on a $1 billion, five-year deal, and inked a $30 million deal for 18 Sunday morning MLB games in April.

• Peacock had 28 million monthly users, including 13 million paid subscribers, at the end of the first quarter.
• NBCUniversal’s total haul reportedly exceeded $7 billion, the most since Comcast acquired the network in 2013.
• The company raised rates by a figure in the mid-single digits, according to NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell.

Ad-Tech Upgrade

Peacock is also working in new ways to display ads. It has rolled out frame ads in which the content the user is watching gets smaller, opening up part of the screen for an ad.

Another ad type, in-scene ads, remains in testing stages. In these, the network displays an ad somewhere in the actual show, movie, or game someone is watching, such as on a billboard.

In both cases, ads are geo-targeted and can be updated to be more relevant.