Peacock Is Still NBC's Worst Nightmare

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Captain Midnight.

[00:00:06]>> I enjoy Peacock's Ted. I like season 1, and I thought season 2 was even better.

[00:00:11]As if that wasn't rare enough in the era of streaming TV, it also managed to do something even more unique. It actually made gains in viewership. In a time where, like, Netflix is great at making first seasons that rocket off to become hits only to come crashing down in season 2. That is legitimately impressive. By just about any metric, TED is as big a success story as a struggling streamer like Peacock could have possibly hoped for. And yet, as you may already know, as of right now, there are no plans for season 3 with a high cost to the series being cited as the culprit. And I'm just baffled by this.

[00:00:48]They knew how much this show would cost when they green lit it. And it did exactly what it needed to do, more than it needed to do. Honestly, if this is what success in the world of the giant streamers looks like, I'd hate to see failure. But I think it speaks to a larger crisis at Peacock, a streamer that has changed a lot from its time a few years ago when I made my first video about the service. It seems to be taking one step forward and a few giant steps back. I always find this TV industry stuff fascinating, so I wanted to talk about it this week and get into where they're going wrong and a few bright spots on the horizon. If they can actually manage to hold this all together. Before I get into it, thanks for being here. And if you find yourself watching my stuff often and haven't subscribed yet, I definitely appreciate it.

[00:01:35]So, in my video on Peacock in April of 2024, I opened talking about how they lost $639 million in their then latest reported quarter. Now, that was actually a positive trend toward profitability, better than the $825 million loss that they had the quarter before that. These are mind-boggling amounts of money, obviously, but Peacock at least seem to be on the right track.

[00:02:00]Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, isn't exactly small, and they seem willing to stomach the losses. Each quarter seem to be making things a little bit better.

[00:02:10]Hell, in Q2 of 2025, they only lost 101 million. I mean, that's basically pocket change. Nice. Uh, but then something happened. The last quarter of 2025 lost 552 million, and now the first quarter of 26 came in at 432 million. Down the drain. I'll stop listing quarters. Okay, my point is they had been improving, then they lost ground. So, what happened? Was the cancellation of Pokerface really that devastating? Well, maybe it should have been, but not exactly. NBC Universal has a lot of things working against them.

[00:02:43]And though they say they're approaching profitability now, the question remains how long they can afford to hold out now that the losses of Peacock are coming in above a staggering 11 billion. What it all adds up to is that as the rest of the big streamers have been ruthless about cutting costs and becoming profitable after the era of lowinterest money ended, they've been stuck with 2019 style streaming losses in a very much not 2019 economy. All the while failing to expand outside of the US while other streamers are seeing big growth elsewhere. For years, they've had the juggernaut that was broadcast TV to help offset these costs. But as old linear television shrinks and shrinks every year, they're not exactly in a great position. And ironically, it's one of the last strengths of broadcast TV that's hurting them right now. Sports.

[00:03:33]On paper, this is one of the best things that Peacock has going for it. The Olympics, the NBA, college football, the NFL, Premier League Soccer, among others. Look, it's a US service. I'm calling it soccer. Okay. Anyway, leveraging their pre-existing NBC relationships with the leagues has definitely helped Peacock gain subscribers, but it comes with some massive downsides that I'm not sure they can really do anything about. For one thing, a lot of the people subscribing for sports just aren't sticking around despite having shows like TED and legitimate reality TV hits like Love Island and Traders. According to analysts, Peacock has the highest churn rate of any of the major streamers monthtomonth. People may sign up for the Olympics, but a lot of them are cancelling right when it ends. To make matters worse, as sports becomes one of the few steady, stable live events left for TV, all these leagues and organizations are more than happy to take advantage of that. With the rights for the NBA and the NFL getting ridiculously expensive, these deals just continue to go up, costing more and more. But if you're a TV or streaming exec, it's impossible to not see how important they are. Sports are at an amazing position right now and the owners know it. So, if reality TV and TED aren't enough to keep sports viewers around, what is? Well, Peacock thinks it has the answer for that. Taylor Sheridan, Yellowstone, Land Man, 1883, Tulsa King. The guy seems to be a one-man empire at Paramount Plus, making hit after hit with Land Man especially being shockingly popular on the streaming charts in the last year. Of course, Yellowstone was what started the whole thing. And weirdly to most viewers in the US, that's a Peacock show. When it started on the Paramount Network, it didn't seem like that big of a deal at first. So Peacock got the exclusive streaming rights for it in 2020, and it's just been there ever since. And an absolutely embarrassing deal for Paramount. So when they had the opportunity to sign Sheridan himself, they took it. And they're betting big that his shows are exactly what sports fans will need to stick around. I don't think they need a hit as massive as Yellowstone, but they really do need something that will get people to keep their subscriptions. So, this seems like it could work out for them. The problem is they won't get a show out of him for years. We're talking like 2029. That is a long time to hold out for a creator that they hope will change their fortunes. And I'm not sure it'll be enough. That brings us back to Ted and why it basically being cancelled feels like such a bad move. We all know the show is expensive. Not many sitcoms require photorealistic CG animation of a fully realized character interacting with live actors in real environments and you know like making physical contact. That is not cheap stuff. Seth McFarland compared it to making an Avengers movie every 22 minutes which seems like an exaggeration but I don't know maybe not by much but that's just the production reality of the premise and everyone knew that going in. So, it's weird to me that in success, they're choosing to do away with the show and replace it with a TED animated series. Like, if this is cost cutting, it's kind of weird cost cutting. They're bringing this show back to the time of the movies and bringing in Mark Wahberg, who cannot be cheap. If they had just announced that season 3 of Ted would be animated, that would probably be seen as a downgrade, but at least the show that people fell for would still be intact.

[00:06:57]This still very pricey animated middleground that they went with seems like the worst of both worlds. You lose the actors and writer room that made the show what it was, and you still have an expensive show. I really don't get it. I don't know. My read on this could be totally wrong because I am not a big fan of the movies. You should give me your takes on the TED situation. Maybe I'm off base. I just really don't think so.

[00:07:21]Either way, cancelling their biggest scripted hit is not a good sign. Full stop.

[00:07:27]So, where does this all leave Peacock?

[00:07:30]It's not great, but if you squint, there is some good news, maybe. Like, there are actual reasons to think things could improve. Even though it feels like Peacock is often seen as a punchline, the subscriber base is still at 46 million and growing. That's not anywhere near Netflix, Disney, or HBO, but it's still a massive number. And even if the NBA and WWE deals have created a churn problem, it still boosted that number by a lot. Like I said, NBC keeps saying it's approaching profitability very soon, and they could be right. I mean, the library they have, The Office, Parks and Wreck, 30 Rock, all the Law and Orders, the entire Bravo reality empire, Saturday Night Live, not even counting all the movies, is genuinely deep in ways that I don't think it always gets credit for, but cancelelling TED just as it was really taking off feels desperate in a way that sets off alarm bells for me. The real problem is NBC needs this to work. They spun off their cable channels like Bravo, USA Network, and Sci-Fi into more of a new junk company just to run away from them. These were once the backbone of NBC Universal's cable empire, and now they're a spin-off company that no one wants to buy. Time may be running out here. The story of NBC over the last 30 years is a decline that's really hard to overstate. The Tonight Show has lost more than half its audience in a decade. The Today Show has shed nearly half its audience, too.

[00:08:52]Peacock is supposed to make up a lot of that lost ground, but I'm just not sure it's possible at this point. 11 billion dollars later, it doesn't look great. Do I think Peacock can stick around? Yes, probably. But I don't think they'll ever be able to occupy the same place in American culture. That was inevitable as technology shifted. But I also think considering where they started and their massive, very respectable library that a lot of things had to go wrong for them to be struggling just to get above water for a decade. All right, so clearly not everything is destined for greatness. I know one thing that definitely was though, the Twilight Zone. It's the subject of the first episode of my new series, Showrrunners. Specifically, it's fascinating creator Rod Serling. And he's just the first subject of the show.

[00:09:39]Every episode, I'll be diving into the life and work of some of the best writers and producers in TV history.

[00:09:45]It's my love letter to TV and a show that I've been excited about making for a long time now. If you haven't checked it out yet, you can watch it right now.

[00:09:53]My episode on Vince Gilligan is dropping this month, too, where I get into Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and way more. You can watch showrunners right now on Nebula alongside adree videos from creators like Nandov Movies, Lindsay Ellis, who has exclusive videos, and Cinema Stickix's Let's Rewind series, plus over 200 others. Nebula is a platform where adree videos and original projects can really shine, stuff you won't find anywhere else. It's made for creators and viewers who want something new and different. You also get all my regular videos ad free along with exclusives and of course the full showrunner series. You can get 50% off an annual membership just 30 bucks a year or 250 a month at go.nebula.tv/captain midnight by using the QR code on screen or just clicking the link below to start with the Rod Surling episode. Here's a special tip for the fellas and girls who have not already joined Captain Midnight's new 1940 flight patrol. You'd better hurry up and join at once because there's a big adventure ahead. The thing to do now is to get started because we're going to have not only barrels of fun, but loads of free gifts and prizes, too.