Peacock, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and You (HBBIP #70)

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Right now, even days later, you’ve probably still got an inbox full of Super Bowl content. We have plenty of Super Bowl coverage forthcoming: look for it across CreatorIQ’s owned social, our TTT series, and in this very blog series. But for now, why don’t we go in a tangentially related but still somewhat different direction and talk about, uh, a streaming platform that didn’t show the Super Bowl?

(Sorry, Fox. I guess it wasn’t meant…Tubi.)

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): Peacock

Yes, it’s NBC’s contestant in the streaming wars: Peacock! If you’re a fan of The Office reruns, Yellowstone, or Big Ten Basketball, boy howdy, do I have a streaming platform for you.

But Alex, I hear you saying: Big Ten Basketball is great and all—everybody loves a thrilling 55-47 final score—but it’s no Super Bowl! Why am I hearing about Peacock on today of all days?

This is why:

Peacock EMV 2020 - 2024

Ever since launching on July 15, 2020 (one day shy of my birthday—rude!), Peacock has built a steady following and seen consistent growth across various metrics, which is more than many streaming platforms can say. (Remember Quibi? I barely do.)

Peacock has seen its EMV increase by 13x…

Peacock Impressions 2020 - 2024

While its impressions have increased by 16x. After all, there are a lot of Yellowstone fans out there.

Surely we’ll see a similar pattern for engagements, right?

Peacock Engagements 2020 - 2024

Well, not quite. (One of these days I’m going to pull the ‘surely’ rhetorical trick, and it’ll turn out that I’m not setting you up for a misdirection—which is itself, of course, a long-term misdirection.)

We do see a decline from 2021 to 2022, perhaps because creators were too busy watching their favorite programs to like, comment, and share content about these programs. Still, Peacock wasn’t exactly hurting in 2022: as reported at the time, the streaming platform tripled its revenue YoY, and added five million subscribers in Q4 2022.

What was behind this growth? For one thing, Peacock’s flexible pricing structure, which included a free option that seems even more revolutionary now than it did then, as well as the rise of live sports, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Another interesting wrinkle here is that Peacock’s community size didn’t see linear growth, either:

Peacock Number of Creators: 2020 - 2024

That dip between 2022 and 2023 might very well have coincided with a less eventful year for live sports, certainly compared to 2024. However, this didn’t have too much of an impact on the platform’s content volume, which continued to rise regardless:

Peacock Number of Posts: 2020-2024

Looking at all these metrics in context together, several questions emerge. What has Peacock done to capture creators’ attention? Who are the creators talking about the platform? What do they say about it? And how did Peacock manage to secure such consistent growth across all metrics in 2024?

All throughout this blog post, I’ve been alluding to live sports. Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ll probably be able to put together why 2024 was a particularly big year for sports—and therefore a particularly big year for Peacock. Here’s a hint to jog your memory:

Image courtesy of CBC

Still not doing it for you? How about this?

(Image courtesy of nine.com)

That’s right: the Olympics and all its many memes took place in 2024, and Peacock was there to provide front-row seats for the world. And there’s nothing bigger than the Olympics—it’s like the Super Bowl of sports!

Taking place during the summer months, you can clearly see the impact that the Olympics had on Peacock’s engagements:

Peacock Monthly Engagements: 2024

As well as its EMV:

Peacock Monthly EMV: 2024

But just as before, Peacock saved a curveball for me, this time in the form of monthly impressions:

Peacock Monthly Impressions: 2024

Hey, that’s not like the other ones!

Yes, as it turned out, people watch a lot of TV around the holidays—especially if the NFL is involved. Suffice it to say that Peacock has more than just the Olympics going on.

And sure enough, when we look at Peacock’s top EMV-drivers from 2024, while Team USA is holding things down for the Olympics, there’s plenty of representation across the board in terms of programming.

Peacock's Top EMV Drivers: 2024

Sports! News! Popular culture! Reality TV! Both Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg! (Good on Snoop for carefully picking his spots and not getting overexposed.) Truly, Peacock has it all.

And what’s that in the Number One spot? A little thing called the NFL. You might recall them from yesterday’s Super Bowl.

How’s that for bringing everything full circle?

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