Entertainment
What Does the Paramount-WBD Merger Mean for Peacock?
As industry consolidation reshapes the streaming landscape, Peacock finds itself in an awkward position.
Since launching in 2020, the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service has grown to a total of 46 million paid subscribers, but has lost more than $10 billion. In its latest quarter, Peacock’s losses widened to $432 million, though Comcast executives say it will “approach” profitability in the second quarter.
While closing in on profitability is a meaningful inflection point, Peacock’s road to continued growth will only get more difficult as Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are poised to combine in a $110 billion merger, creating an HBO Max/Paramount+ behemoth with over 200 million subscribers that will put it closer to competitors like Netflix, Disney+/Hulu and Amazon’s Prime Video – and make Peacock’s subscriber gap more pronounced.
The combined streaming entity will also make the challenge of hanging on to customers more difficult, with experts telling TheWrap that Peacock will need to take bigger swings with its content strategy and find more ways to differentiate itself from the competition.
In the first three months of 2026, Peacock’s turnover rate remained at 9%, according to Antenna – the highest of any of the major streamers tracked by the research firm. An individual familiar with the matter, however, told TheWrap that Peacock’s churn is lower than Antenna’s figure and more in line with the industry average.
Meanwhile, a Hub Entertainment Research survey of 1,600 consumers found that 98% of respondents were aware of Peacock, but only 64% felt confident they could explain its offering and how it differentiates itself from other platforms to someone else, underscoring the challenges it faces in forging a base of loyal subscribers.
“It’s a tough place to be when consumers are already hitting subscription fatigue,” Qualia Legacy Advisors managing director Aaron Meyerson told TheWrap. “Competing for high-profile IP gets harder when your chief rival just inherited WBD’s IP-heavy library overnight. The merger won’t kill Peacock, but it probably caps it.”
Comcast executives have argued that they manage the media business holistically and that its strategy around Peacock is not to chase other streamers, but to “reimagine broadcast television” and “extend the NBC universe.”
During a SXSW panel in March, NBCUniversal direct-to-consumer president Matt Strauss said “the real battleground isn’t who has the most subscribers, it’s who earns the most share of time” and that NBCU would win that fight by super-serving fandoms.
That strategy notched a notable victory in the Nielsen Media Distributor Gauge in February, with NBCUniversal’s total share of TV viewership hitting 13%, driven by the Milan Cortina Olympics and the Super Bowl. Peacock hit a new platform best of 3% for the month, which was also driven in part by the original series “The Burbs,” while another 3% of the company’s total was attributable to its cable networks that were spun off into Versant in January.
While Meyerson said that reframing is “more defensible,” he noted it’s an “implicit acknowledgment of Peacock’s ceiling.”
And the fact remains that despite successes like “The ‘Burbs” and “The Office” spinoff “The Paper,” the streamer has thus far failed to produce a big scripted smash hit like its rivals, and its biggest IP to date is comedy series “Ted,” which just wrapped its second, likely final, season.
“Peacock doesn’t need to ‘win’ the streaming wars — it needs to be sustainably profitable within a bundled ecosystem,” he added. “Next quarter profitability is believable, but sustaining that profitability — keeping subs engaged without accelerating content spend — will be challenging.”
Evan Shapiro, a veteran TV producer and former head of NBCU’s Seeso streaming service, was less forgiving, arguing that Peacock breaking even or generating a small profit six years after launch is not meaningful enough to help offset the declines in Comcast’s broadband and pay TV businesses. He added that the service would be in a stronger competitive position had its leadership taken bolder swings years ago when the streaming wars were just starting to heat up.
“To me, the entire Peacock strategy right now seems to be Bravo, sports, and ‘Love Island,’” Shapiro told TheWrap. “The biggest problem with Peacock isn’t the platform. It’s an utter lack of vision.”
Peacock’s path forward
Peacock’s key point of differentiation among consumers surveyed by Hub was its sports offering, which the firm’s senior consultant Mark Loughney told TheWrap is a “tough thing to be known for when you’re not profitable yet,” especially as rights costs are expected to increase in the years ahead.
Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong assured Wall Street that the biggest costs from its $2.45 billion per year NBA contract has already hit its books this year and that executives “feel good about the direction from here.” But it also has another expensive package of sports rights coming up for renewal: The NFL.
Tom Rogers, a senior advisor at Versant and founder of CNBC, warned that the league’s renegotiations will push the major media companies to allocate an “enormous” amount of budget towards sports.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that limits and constrains entertainment expense to some extent,” Rogers told TheWrap. “That’s going to implicate Disney, that’s going to implicate Paramount, it’s going to implicate Comcast. They’re all going to be dealing with that issue.”
Despite sports programming being a double-edged sword, it has helped push more consumers towards Peacock’s entertainment offerings, with 54% of new subscribers from the Olympics and 56% of Super Bowl subscribers watching that content – on par or exceeding the 2022 Winter Olympics and Super Bowl.
Outside of sports, Bravo series have been a major win on Peacock, with their monthly reach growing by 45% over the last six months. Superfans watch 92% more non-Bravo hours than the normal subscriber and are 33% less likely to churn. Other titles that have resonated include “Love Island,” “The Traitors,” “All Her Fault” and event programming such as the “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade” and “SNL50: The Anniversary Special.”
But experts argued that Peacock needs to invest more in diversifying its lineup of original content if it’s going to keep subscribers engaged and turn consistent profits in the long-term. A few bigger swings are coming up — Amy Poehler and “Parks and Rec” creator Mike Schur reunite for the comedy “Dig,” while “Crystal Lake” will turn the “Friday the 13th” franchise into a TV series (though it wasn’t without its production troubles).
One major bet Peacock is making on the scripted originals front is an over $1 billion TV and film deal with “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan, which kicks off in full after his contract with Paramount expires at the end of 2028.
“Taylor Sheridan is going to be very important. He’s a brand and a statement in himself that, ‘This is not liberal media. I can go watch this programming and it’s going to have a voice that speaks to me,’ which is half of America. That was a big misfire for Paramount to lose that and a huge purchase for Peacock,” a media executive who requested anonymity told TheWrap. “They just need to get out of their lane right now. They need more [than sports and Bravo].”
Beyond its investment in original programming, Peacock is expanding its distribution through individual bundles with Walmart+, Instacart and Apple TV, as well as Comcast’s Xfinity’s StreamSaver offering, which gives users the option to customize bundles with Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV and Netflix.
Additionally, Peacock’s ad-free Premium Plus tier is available as an add-on through Prime Video Channels and Roku and will roll out on YouTube’s Primetime Channels in the coming months. DirecTV and Charter both offer Peacock as well.
Playing with new formats like vertical video holds promise, with Peacock seeing longer user sessions on its mobile app and increased engagement with its content in early tests, according to a person familiar with its rollout plans. The company will launch a dedicated vertical video section and Your Bravoverse, a feed guided by an AI version of Andy Cohen, this summer. The Your Bravoverse feature will also expand to TVs at a later date.
Another lever available to Peacock is international expansion, which could allow it to not only pick up subscribers in new territories, but help flex its reach when bidding for sought-after film, TV and sports rights. But Comcast is in no rush, given its existing international presence with SkyShowtime and Hayu, not to mention the expenses, lower ARPU and different rules and taxes associated with such a move.
“I don’t see a reason in our construct why we are disadvantaged by not pursuing global,” Cavanagh said during an investor conference hosted by Morgan Stanley in March. “Others are doing it. Clearly, they have different strategies for different players. But in our case, domestic is our path.”
The M&A option
Peacock is already pulling a number of levers to differentiate itself, raising the question of whether it should look to M&A to help boost its scale.
Despite having a “high bar” when it comes to its appetite for dealmaking, Comcast was notably in the running to acquire WBD’s studio and streaming assets, but was ultimately outbid by Netflix and decided to bow out. Meanwhile, the media giant and its Sky division have also held talks with ITV about acquiring its media and entertainment business for £1.6 billion. That deal would not include ITV Studios, which produces “Love Island.”
Shapiro said NBCUniversal and Peacock could potentially look to roll up a bunch of niche streamers or acquire AMC Global or Starz’s subscribers to bulk up their own customer base, but argued they’d “still be at a distant fifth or sixth place” after that.
Others have floated the possibility of Comcast parting with NBCUniversal. In January, Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich said a spinoff of NBCU would give Comcast the strategic and regulatory rationale to pursue a merger with its broadband and pay TV rival Charter Communications to command a higher multiple as a pureplay connectivity company.
Meanwhile, the media executive said that Netflix could be a potential acquirer of NBCU if it was put up for sale.
“If Netflix was serious about Warner Brothers, it’ll get a pretty similar asset, frankly, at a much cheaper price [with NBCUniversal and Peacock],” the exec said. “But I don’t know if Netflix is going to have a bad taste in their mouth after what happened to their stock when they were pursuing Warner.”
Cavanagh has maintained that NBCU and Peacock are stronger staying within Comcast, but has said the company is open to exploring opportunities that create value.
“We always have the options to consider other things if and when we conclude that there’s a need to consider other paths. But driving results in the business is our priority for the near term,” he said during the Morgan Stanley conference. “If we conclude differently, hopefully, people take the evidence of the Versant spin and our consideration of a thoughtful approach to the Warner situation that made sense for us as evidence that we’re open for business when it comes to other broader possibilities. But we like what we’re doing.”
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EXCLUSIVE: British comedian and mind reader Peter Antoniou has announced a big set of tour dates for 2027.
From a childhood fascination with a tarot deck to performing for audiences around the world, Antoniou has built a career around turning the impossible into unforgettable theatre. His live performances combine comedy and audience interaction with moments of mind reading that leave crowds feeling as though they’ve stepped inside an episode of The Twilight Zone. No two performances are alike as Antoniou relies on the audience’s thoughts and secrets to craft the show.
Fresh off his nationwide Pretty Psychic tour, Antoniou’s new show, Peter Antoniou: Brain Teaser, pushes the experience further than ever before.
“This show is bigger, bolder, and more ambitious than anything I’ve done,” he says. “The only missing piece is your brain.”
Tickets will be available beginning with the Citi Presale on Tuesday, September 29 at 10 a.m. local time, running through Thursday, October 1 at 11:59 p.m. local time. They’ll go on sale to the general public on Friday, October 2 at 10 a.m. local.
Antoniou developed his craft through years of study with practitioners ranging from tarot readers and psychics to hypnotists, magicians, and psychologists. He’s repped by Val Sloot at Gersh and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. View his list of tour dates below.
PETER ANTONIOU: BRAIN TEASER 2027 TOUR:
Thu, Jan 14 Napa, CA at Uptown Theatre*
Fri, Jan 15 Monterey, CA at Golden State Theatre*
Sat, Jan 16 SLO, CA at Fremont Theater*
Sun, Jan 17 Ventura, CA at Ventura Music Hall*
Wed, Jan 20 Norfolk, VA at Attucks Theatre
Thu, Jan 21 Durham, NC at Carolina Theatre of Durham/Fletcher Hall
Fri, Jan 22 Charlotte, NC at The Fillmore Charlotte
Sat, Jan 23 Atlanta, GA at Buckhead Theatre
Sun, Jan 24 Lexington, KY at Lexington Opera House
Thu, Jan 28 Silver Spring, MD at The Fillmore Silver Spring
Fri, Jan 29 New York, NY at The Gramercy Theatre
Sat, Jan 30 Mckees Rocks, PA at Roxian Theatre Presented by Citizens
Sun, Jan 31 Philadelphia, PA at The Fillmore Philadelphia
Tue, Feb 2 Exeter, UK at Phoenix
Wed, Feb 3 Cardiff, UK at Glee
Thu, Feb 4 Bath, UK at Komedia
Fri, Feb 5 London, UK at Leicester Square Theatre
Sun, Feb 7 Bristol, UK at Hen and Chicken
Mon, Feb 8 Cambridge, UK at Junction
Tue, Feb 9 Leicester, UK at Y Theatre
Wed, Feb 10 Sheffield, UK at Leadmill
Thu, Feb 11 Liverpool, UK at Hot Water
Fri, Feb 12 Belfast, UK at Limelight
Sat, Feb 13 Dublin, IE at Ambassador
Sun, Feb 14 Manchester, UK at New Century Hall
Tue, Feb 16 Newcastle, UK at Stand
Wed, Feb 17 Edinburgh, UK at Monkey Barrell
Thu, Feb 18 Glasgow, UK at Glee
Sun, Feb 21 Vancouver, BC at The Chan Centre*
Thu, Feb 25 Denver, CO at Paramount Theatre
Fri, Feb 26 Minneapolis, MN at The Fillmore Minneapolis
Sat, Feb 27 Salt Lake City, UT at The Depot
Thu, Mar 11 Spokane, WA at Bing Crosby Theatre
Fri, Mar 12 Seattle, WA at The Neptune Theatre
Sat, Mar 13 Salem, OR at Historic Elsinore Theatre
Sun, Mar 14 Boise, ID at Egyptian Theatre
Thu, Mar 18 Tucson, AZ at Rialto Theatre
Fri, Mar 19 Phoenix, AZ at The Van Buren
Sat, Mar 20 San Diego, CA at Observatory SD
Thu, Apr 1 Anaheim, CA at The Grove of Anaheim
Fri, Apr 2 Los Angeles, CA at Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Sat, Apr 3 San Francisco, CA at Palace of Fine Arts
Fri, Apr 9 Tampa, FL at Tampa Theatre
Sat, Apr 10 Ft. Lauderdale, FL at Wells Hall at The Parker
Sat, May 1 Lancaster, CA at Lancaster PAC*
Thu, May 6 Dallas, TX at House of Blues
Fri, May 7 Houston, TX at House of Blues
Sat, May 8 San Antonio, TX at The Aztec Theatre
*Not a Live Nation show
This story originated as part of Deadline’s Comedy Means Business newsletter. Sign up here.
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EXCLUSIVE: A Toxic Love Story producer Curious Films is moving into the live space with a new Boyzone concert film following the smash success of its Sky doc.
Last year, Boyzone: No Matter What became Sky’s most-watched unscripted series of all time and was the catalyst for the Irish superstars getting back together. Curious Films has subsequently produced a fourth and fifth episode showing Ronan Keating and co reforming and we can reveal has also recorded the band’s live concert from the Emirates Stadium, London, which took place over the summer and will air later this year on Sky.
The Boyzone: One for the Road live one-off is a first for a UK documentaries indie that has spent the past few years nurturing a reputation for making big true crime and pop culture hits for the streamers including Netflix’s A Toxic Love Story, and Hulu’s Welcome to the Family and Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth.
Curious boss Dov Freedman said the decision to make the live show “came quite late in the day” and involved a much faster turnaround than the London-headquartered outfit is used to.
“[The live show] was a refreshing addition to the retrospective work we do,” said Freedman. “We can spend 18 months or two years making crime documentaries, whereas the concert film had a much faster turnaround. It involved a different dynamic, different producers and different skills. We had around 40 staff working on it and shot it with about 25 cameras. It looked fantastic, and we’re definitely looking to do more in that space.”
Curious’ timing is good as the streamers double down on live content mainly in areas like music and sport. Netflix UK recently forged a commissioning team dedicated to live.
Curious’ “knew we had something” when it started filming the first Boyzone doc and the “pain close to the surface” from the band members became clear, Freedman said.
Things got even clearer when the band’s former manager Louis Walsh was interviewed and “they all had different perspectives on the same story.” Walsh has described claims made by band members in the doc as “fiction rather than fact.”
“The first time we got in a room with the band, we sensed that we were onto something,” said Freedman. “They were all going to be very honest, which felt refreshing.”
“Outsider perspective”
Curious is keen to do more live but will continue to mainly do what it does best, Freedman said, focusing on true crime and popular culture. It recently entered a new era following the departure of Freedman’s co-founder Charlie Russell, who has been replaced by the promoted MD Nicky Varley, someone who Freedman said has “played an important role in building our relationships with Hulu, Netflix and National Geographic.”
Curious’ approach in part over recent years has been to examine “big American ‘ripped from the headlines’ stories” and deliver them with “craft,” Freedman said. He reckons British docmakers have a particular sensibility, which suits this approach.
“We always saw America as a good opportunity,” he added. “This isn’t new – companies that came before Curious have been doing it much longer – but we believed our Britishness and outsider status could help us get access to stories that U.S. producers might not be able to access in quite the same way. That outsider perspective can also give us a different approach to telling the stories.”
Shows may have aired in the past about the subjects of Welcome to the Family or A Toxic Love Story, but Freedman questioned whether they were “made too quickly or reacted to events too soon.” “When we take on a story, we try to tell the definitive version,” he added. “That’s often about timing.”
In the case of these two shows it paid off.
Following a jaw-dropping revenge plot involving a newly-married U.S. Marshal and his ex-girlfriend, A Toxic Love Story has hit numerous Netflix top 10s since launching over the summer. Welcome to the Family, which tells of the brutal murder of law professor Dan Markel, has spent days as Disney+’s no. 1 show in both the U.S. and UK.
“If you look across Curious’s slate over the last couple of years we’ve been able to deliver large audiences at a time when audiences are fragmented and competition for viewers has never been higher,” said Freedman.
He said Welcome to the Family has kept the “very good” Hulu scripted series Furious off the top spot for a while now. “If you compare the cost of Welcome to the Family with the cost of a scripted series such as Furious, I think streamers and buyers are looking closely at the audiences that true-crime stories can bring,” he added.
Curious wants to double down in America and Freedman speaks with Deadline from L.A., which he will visit three to four times per year and says is “really starting to pay off.”
In the offing is another Netflix true crime series for early next year, which Freedman is keeping mum about, and a show about a “story I’ve always liked that people know, but they only know one side of it,” he added, intriguingly.
Freedman’s view on the docs commissioning landscape more generally is “mixed.”
On the one hand, “it’s harder than ever to get greenlights, competition is intense for stories that everyone knows are working, and buyers are making fewer bets each year.”
On the other, “documentaries have never been more popular or attracted such large audiences.”
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EXCLUSIVE: The shape of distributor Banijay Rights is beginning to form.
One of the big distribution winners of the Banijay-All3Media mega-merger has emerged as Rachel Job, who we hear is in line for a senior content role, with long-serving execs such as Simon Cox, Claire Jago and Maartje Horchner exiting.
We also have news of of the Banijay international scripted division slimming down, where Denis Leroy has left his post.
Deadline understands Job, who was All3Media International‘s SVP, Unscripted, will take up an EVP-level post that covers both scripted and unscripted rights at the merged Banijay and All3Media group.
Banijay has been overseeing a consultancy process for staff in recent weeks, which is nearing completion. Various execs are exiting, with a full announcement on the shape of the business likely soon, possibly before MIPCOM.
We understand that Banijay Rights EVP Content Acquisitions Cox, EVP EMEA, Sales & Acquisitions Jago and Horchner, who was Executive VP Content at All3Media International, all took voluntary redundancy. We hear that Chris Stewart, Senior Vice President Of Sales UK & Eire, has also taken the voluntary redundancy package. Broadcast was first with the news of Cox and Jago’s departures.
Cox has been with Banijay since 2021 when it acquired Endemol Shine Group, where he had been Head of Acquisitions since 2015. Jago was also a long-serving Endemol Shine sales exec, while Horchner has been with All3Media since its very early days, joining back in 2004.
Today’s update comes after we revealed that long-serving All3Media International CEO Louise Pedersen was exiting following the Banijay merger’s completion. Cathy Payne is leading the new-look Banijay Rights. Banijay has previously said it will prioritize “eliminating duplication” in distribution and sales as it seeks €50M ($56.8M) in synergies within 12 months of the deal closing.
Job, a former History UK programming chief, has been with All3 since 2019. Her role has included working on All3 content and third-party acquisitions. Given the merged Banijay and All3Media business has more than 170 production labels, sources are speculating the focus going forward will be far more on in-house content.
At All3, Job has worked on shows such as The Traitors, Gogglebox and Cash Cab, while also being a key buyer of third-party shows. She has been across titles such as Michael Jackson: The Trial and Taylor Swift: A Love Story this year, along with Toronto breakout 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback, which Netflix acquired, as we revealed last month.
With a catalog of more than 265,000 hours, the new-look Banijay Rights team will be at MIPCOM next month with a slate including Channel 4 drama Maya and BBC legal series Reputation, entertainment format Last One Standing and a return for long-running factual series One Born Every Minute. It will also house The Traitors, Big Brother, Survivor, Fear Factor and Deal or No Deal under one roof. The company will operate out of a newly named ‘Banijay House’ opposite the Palais des Festivals.
Scripted Changes
Elsewhere, Banijay’s international scripted team, which makes co-productions between labels and sources IP, has been shrunk following the exit of Denis Leroy, and following Johannes Jensen shifting to a role within the Banijay Nordics team.
Leroy was Senior Director of the Banijay group scripted team, leading on the scripted format and literary IP strategy. He had been with the company for around a decade, and was with Zodiak Media before that, working across numerous projects.
We understand his exit came in the past few weeks. Jensen, who was Head of Scripted, Business within the same team, has shifted to a director of scripted role within Banijay Nordics.
This, we understand, leaves Steve Matthews, Banijay’s Head of Scripted, Creative as the sole senior member of this team.
When big beasts like Banijay are seeking synergies, one source suggested that roles like Leroy’s and Jensen’s, which tie labels together, tend to be under grave threat.
Having less executives bringing the labels together may make it harder to fund European, non-English language co-productions, which often rely on numerous producers, a different source speculated.
Banijay declined to comment when approached today. A spokesperson has previously said: “Since the merger has only just closed, we are not yet in a position to confirm Banijay Entertainment’s combined leadership team or organisational structure.”
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