Peacock has hit a total of 30 million paid subscribers, Comcast president Mike Cavanagh revealed during an investor conference hosted by UBS on Monday.
The latest figure comes after the streaming service topped 28 paid million subscribers during the NBCUniversal parent’s third quarter earnings.
Cavanagh also confirmed on Monday that Peacock’s average revenue per user is about $10 per month and reiterated previous guidance that the service is projected to hit peak losses of $2.8 billion in 2023. He emphasized that NBCU would be focused on Peacock’s domestic growth.
“We can take the content that doesn’t go into Peacock and monetize it outside of the United States. I think for us, that’s not the ambition, we’ll figure out how to make sure our international joint ventures and partnerships and the like solve the problem of what it means not to have a global service of our own, and that can change over time,” Cavanagh added. “But our primary focus is figure out domestic and make sure that we continue to have the reach and relevance between linear and digital as we look several years down the road. I think that will set us up for plenty of good, both sustainability of what we currently are, which is a pretty powerful thing, and good optionality for the future.”
In addition to the latest figures for Peacock, Cavanagh said that Comcast had collected an $8.61 billion check on Friday for Disney’s initial payment for the former’s minority stake in Hulu.
Any additional money paid out will be determined by an appraisal process for Hulu’s full value that will take place in 2024. Under the initial put/call agreement in 2019, a floor value for Hulu was set at $27.5 billion.
“We expect and certainly hope to get more than that once the process ends,” Cavanagh said Monday. “But it’s really just the beginning.”
If Disney and Comcast can’t agree on Hulu’s fair market value, each company will hire an investment bank to make a determination. If the two determinations are not within 10% of each other, then the two banks will hire a third firm, in which case the equity fair value shall be the average of the two determinations that are closest in value to each other.
According to an SEC filing, the appraisers will base the valuation on factors including “Hulu’s historical financial and operating results, which shall be based solely on audited financial statements; that Hulu is valued as a going concern, carrying on its existing business activities; and Hulu’s future business prospects and projected financial and operating results, assuming that the assets, contract rights and intellectual property used in Hulu’s business that are provided by Disney will be continued and available to Hulu in a manner and on terms consistent with past practice.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger told analysts during the company’s third quarter earnings call last month that a beta version of a combined Disney+ and Hulu offering would launch in December, with an official rollout set early spring 2024.
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