NBCUniversal posted a 1.5% increase to $2.6 billion in domestic
advertising in the fourth quarter -- mostly driven by the addition of its new NBA programming package, and its streamer Peacock.
Streaming platform Peacock witnessed an 18% rise in advertising
to $564 million -- up from $476 million in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Peacock represents 21% of total NBCU ad revenue -- down from 24% in the previous third-quarter 2025 period.
But
Brian Wieser, media analyst at Substack Madison and Wall, said that streaming rise is not boosting NBCU's overall results -- as linear TV advertising continues to decline on average by similar
double-digit declines. “We still see no evidence that streaming is doing anything other than reallocating linear dollars," Wieser said.
Comcast reported lower ad revenue overall at its
linear TV networks, but did not provide specific details.
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Peacock posted a 23% increase in overall revenues (advertising and subscription) of $1.6 billion in the quarter versus $1.3 billion in
the fourth quarter of 2024. Paid subscribers grew 22% from a year ago to 44 million.
At the same time, the streamer continued to post adjusted net losses of $552 million -- higher than its
$372 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Looking at NBCUniversal Media overall results, total revenue was up 5.5% to $7.6 billion -- largely attributable to domestic distribution gains
of 5.3% in revenue to $3.0 billion.
NBCU’s studio business declined 38% to $351 million as a result of tough comparisons to the previous year, with strong movie titles
“Wicked” and “The Wild Robot.”
On the Comcast pay TV video side of the business, domestic video subscribers continued their downward trend, sinking 10% (245,000) to
11.3 million.
That business also witnessed a 11% decline in local TV advertising to $1.0 billion, partly due to comparisons to heavy political advertising during
the fourth quarter of
2024.
Domestic broadband customers also continued to slip -- 0.5% (181,000) to 31.3 million.