Comcast Weighs Pulling Some Content From Hulu in Effort to Boost Peacock

[ncted]

Which leaves us with Peacock and Paramount+ duking it out for that sixth spot. They'd be much better off if they combined forces, IMO.

Well, they both have buggy apps, so why not?

 

[NashGuy]

Will there be further consolidation in this space? Probably, but I also see headwinds given how the recent mergers are viewed by government regulators and politicians. The anti-trust push back is starting in earnest across a number of industries.

Agreed, although one has to keep in mind that we're talking about a competitive landscape where you have Disney as an absolutely dominant player, created in part by the government letting them make a huge deal to acquire nearly all of Fox's assets. So it would be a bit unfair to keep smaller competitors from teaming up to take on the monster that the DOJ has already helped create. I certainly don't see the government allowing Disney to make any further acquisitions. And I don't see the second-largest player, Netflix, even wanting to make any huge deals as they prefer internal growth and maintaining their own culture. (Plus, they just struck a movie output deal with the largest independent movie studio, Sony, so no need to buy them.)

If NBCU and ViacomCBS were to merge, the resulting company would be far smaller in terms of market cap than either Disney or Netflix. And if it involved Comcast spinning off NBCU, then anti-trust critics might even be in favor of the overall deal, since it would divorce a large media company from the largest broadband/cable TV distributor in the nation. Of course, the resulting Universal/Viacom company would not be allowed to own two major broadcast nets and their O&O stations, so either NBC or CBS would have to be spun off, but perhaps with a long-term deal in place with the buyer to give next-day access to the network's primetime shows to Universal/Viacom's newly combined SVOD (Peacock/Paramount+).

Perhaps Warner Bros. Discovery would be interested in buying CBS along with ViacomCBS's 50% share of The CW, which would give WBD 100% control of that mini-network. (They currently own only 50%.) They could combine the operations of CNN and CBS News (cost-cutting synergy!) and begin putting more WB-produced series on CBS. While Peacock/Paramount+ would get in-season last-5-eps streaming rights, the entire seasons of those shows would appear on HBO Max soon after concluding.

Will all that happen? Probably not. Could it? Seems to plausible to me.

 

[ncted]

If I can point out one huge advantage CBSAA ...er, P+ has over Peacock is live streaming of the local CBS station. I took another look at Peacock today to see if I was missing anything, and that is a huge hole in the live offerings comparatively.

 

[NashGuy]

If I can point out one huge advantage CBSAA ...er, P+ has over Peacock is live streaming of the local CBS station. I took another look at Peacock today to see if I was missing anything, and that is a huge hole in the live offerings comparatively.

Yeah, that's a nice perk that Paramount+ has in their premium tier. Although since all the CBS stuff is available on-demand next-day, and most (all?) of their live sports (e.g. NFL) are available in the lower tier, I'm not sure how much value the live channel adds. I guess it's nice for local and national newscasts, plus Colbert if you're into him.

I've wondered if we won't eventually see Hulu put live local ABC stations in their base package and Peacock do the same with NBC locals. Seems logical.

 

[ncted]

Yeah, that's a nice perk that Paramount+ has in their premium tier. Although since all the CBS stuff is available on-demand next-day, and most (all?) of their live sports (e.g. NFL) are available in the lower tier, I'm not sure how much value the live channel adds. I guess it's nice for local and national newscasts, plus Colbert if you're into him.

I've wondered if we won't eventually see Hulu put live local ABC stations in their base package and Peacock do the same with NBC locals. Seems logical.

Yeah, it is the news that would provide the biggest benefit. Releasing the news shows the next day reduces the value to that of a newspaper.

 

[NashGuy]

Yeah, it is the news that would provide the biggest benefit. Releasing the news shows the next day reduces the value to that of a newspaper.

True. But then there's the free live streaming CBSN channels, one that's national and several others targeting various major metros. And in most places, you can catch at least one local newscast on-demand shortly after it airs live inside the free NewsOn app.

But if you really want to watch Norah O'Donnell live every evening, yeah, you need your live local CBS station.

 

[ncted]

True. But then there's the free live streaming CBSN channels, one that's national and several others targeting various major metros. And in most places, you can catch at least one local newscast on-demand shortly after it airs live inside the free NewsOn app.

But if you really want to watch Norah O'Donnell live every evening, yeah, you need your live local CBS station.

We get our local CBS live via the P+ app. I'd like to have the same thing for NBC on Peacock. Most nights, we end up watching the PBS news hour in the PBS app instead anyway, so it isn't a huge deal. It would just be nice to have.

 

[NashGuy]

We get our local CBS live via the P+ app. I'd like to have the same thing for NBC on Peacock. Most nights, we end up watching the PBS news hour in the PBS app instead anyway, so it isn't a huge deal. It would just be nice to have.

I've noticed that NBC Nightly News becomes available a few hours after airing each night on YouTube. I record it and the CBS Evening News via OTA DVR and watch one or the other that way.

 

[Bruce]

Peacock gain 5 Million more subs.

Comcast Adds 5 Million Subscribers to Peacock in Q4 Amid Heavy Costs

Comcast added 5 million subscribers to its streaming Peacock service, but grappled with costs from content and severance

variety.com

 

[SamCdbs]

And lost nearly a billion dollars.

NBCU took an adjusted loss of $978 million related to Peacock, compared with a loss of $559 million in the year-earlier period.

What, exactly needs to happen for streaming to actually make money?

 

[Bruce]

And lost nearly a billion dollars.

NBCU took an adjusted loss of $978 million related to Peacock, compared with a loss of $559 million in the year-earlier period.

What, exactly needs to happen for streaming to actually make money?

When AT&T bought DirecTV, it paid $48.5 billion ($67 billion accounting for debt) to acquire the business.



When they did their deal with TPG, the new value of DirecTV was at $16.25 billion.



That means it has lost, as a provider, at least $32 Billion dollars or $49 Billion including debt since 2015 in value, when cord cutting started.

WarnerMedia Parent AT&T Sells DirecTV Stake To Private Equity Firm TPG

AT&T Inks Deal For DirecTV With Private Equity Firm TPG; WarnerMedia Parent Will Retain 70%, Net $7.8 Billion In Cash

deadline.com

 

[meStevo]

And lost nearly a billion dollars.

NBCU took an adjusted loss of $978 million related to Peacock, compared with a loss of $559 million in the year-earlier period.

What, exactly needs to happen for streaming to actually make money?

Lost $2.5b actually. From the same report, their guidance is that losses should peak this year, as one of the last services to come online and start building a customer base.

NBCUniversal expects Peacock losses to peak this year as streamer slowly adds subscribers

Peacock losses will likely peak in 2023, as NBCUniversal invests further in its response to the streaming wars.

www.cnbc.com

As long as there's a steady trickle of content the kids are watching we'll remain a sub ourselves via the Amazon Channels, though was considering stopping that and going direct so we can use their app.

 

[SamCdbs]

When AT&T bought DirecTV, it paid $48.5 billion ($67 billion accounting for debt) to acquire the business.



When they did their deal with TPG, the new value of DirecTV was at $16.25 billion.



That means it has lost, as a provider, at least $32 Billion dollars or $49 Billion including debt since 2015 in value, when cord cutting started.

Yes that nice.

What, exactly needs to happen for streaming to actually make money?

 

[Radioguy41]

I'm wondering how they are deriving their cost numbers? Since essentially Peacock is merely streaming already existing content and the cost of that content has already been written off against the OTA network where, exactly, are these huge numbers coming from? I can understand wanting to pull your content back in house in order to bolster your offerings library and pulling it back will result in loss of the fees being paid but in proper bookkeeping you can't write that off as a "cost". A server setup would cost a couple million, maybe, so again, where are these huge numbers coming from? Fudging?

 

[Bruce]

Yes that nice.

What, exactly needs to happen for streaming to actually make money?

IIf you add up all the money that Disney, Peacock and Paramount have lost, it would not even come close to the 49 Billion Dollars that DirecTV has lost.

Streaming will make money.

What will it take for AT&T to make back 49 Billion Dollars, they might get a few billion back if DirecTV merges with Dish.

Will not be much since they have lost 2 million more subscribers since TPG bought their 30% of DirecTV.

I think if Dish waits long enough, they might be able to buy DirecTV with a 6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a two year old copy of TV Guide.

 

[meStevo]

I'm wondering how they are deriving their cost numbers? Since essentially Peacock is merely streaming already existing content and the cost of that content has already been written off against the OTA network where, exactly, are these huge numbers coming from? I can understand wanting to pull your content back in house in order to bolster your offerings library and pulling it back will result in loss of the fees being paid but in proper bookkeeping you can't write that off as a "cost". A server setup would cost a couple million, maybe, so again, where are these huge numbers coming from? Fudging?

Think this is really a and complex answer (as is their path to profitability) but they committed to spend something like $2b in content the first 2 years, and then there are opportunity costs and revenue decreases related to pulling content from other services. Before you posted this I was poking around to find the answer myself, see if this was just a ditch for them to burn money from loosely-related projects since it's expected to be a hole for a couple years.

 

[Bruce]

I'm wondering how they are deriving their cost numbers? Since essentially Peacock is merely streaming already existing content and the cost of that content has already been written off against the OTA network where, exactly, are these huge numbers coming from? I can understand wanting to pull your content back in house in order to bolster your offerings library and pulling it back will result in loss of the fees being paid but in proper bookkeeping you can't write that off as a "cost". A server setup would cost a couple million, maybe, so again, where are these huge numbers coming from? Fudging?

I think the number are more for Tax write offs, things like if we put Jurassic World 3 on HBO, it would of made so much, but since we put it on Peacock it lost 50 million.

 

[ncted]

I think the number are more for Tax write offs, things like if we put Jurassic World 3 on HBO, it would of made so much, but since we put it on Peacock it lost 50 million.

Yeah, I still think they are dumping expenses into the streaming bucket that are only tangentially related to streaming because it is expected to lose money right now. I've been in plenty of places where similar things have happened, namely, Nortel, GSK, and McClatchy. The conversation goes something like this:

Executive 1: "We want to do this thing but it costs a lot of money."
Exec 2: "Can you say it is in any way related to this other thing that is already costing a lot of money?"
Exec 1: "Um, sure. Yeah...um, yeah."

Next thing you know implementing PCI DSS results in every person in the company getting a new computer.

 

[SamCdbs]

Streaming will make money.

Thank you for your fact filled and hard hitting explanation of exactly what has to happen for streaming to make money.

Not.

 

[Bruce]

Thank you for your fact filled and hard hitting explanation of exactly what has to happen for streaming to make money.

Not.

Ok, in your world-

Streaming helps subscribers save money/You-Bad
Streaming has the majority of content from Live TV/You-Bad
Streaming has a lot more exclusive new content, a lot more then Live TV Providers/You-Bad
Streaming shows everything in much better quality/You-Bad
Streaming helps people to not pay (per sub fee)for content they do not wish to have/You-Bad
Streaming lets people have more choices in the content they wish to subscribe to/You-Bad

Another thing you have said-Monday Night Football will never be on ESPN+, well that was wrong.