It’s no secret that Netflix is the most popular streaming service in the world, and it seems like having good movies on a rival service isn’t enough to move the needle sometimes. Take NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service as an example. Their animated lineup is nothing to scoff at, with The Super Mario Bros. and Minions both coming out in recent years and dominating the streaming charts. While that’s good news, there’s one key issue. These movies are all now dominating the charts on Netflix instead.
Looking at the top 10 animated movies of the year on Netflix, the top six movies are all from NBCUniversal. This list includes, in order, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Minions, The Boss Baby, Despicable Me 3, Woody Woodpecker Goes to Camp, and Shrek. The only Netflix original film to crack the top 10 is Leo. Of course, while Peacock have been left in the dust where viewership is concernd, the streaming giant pays for licensing to get these movies on their platform, so both sides benefit from an agreement like this.
NBCUniversal movies stream on Peacock for an exclusive window before they move on to other platforms, premiering on the platform for four months. After that, the live-action movies head to Amazon Prime Video and the animated ones to Netflix for a 10-month exclusivity window. Once that window closes, the film comes back home to Peacock exclusively for four more months. The set-up is planned out this way to entice Peacock subscribers to get the first look, and it’s supposed to encourage people to sign up for the service. That might work for some people, but these streaming charts show a lot of people have no problems waiting for something to come to Netflix.
Peacock’s Growth Has Slowed to a Crawl
Peacock lost subscribers heading into the Olympics, according to Variety. The report says the streamer went from 33.5 million to 33 million subscribers, but there’s a decent chance the service has since added subscribers and made up ground with people who wanted to watch the Paris games. Peacock’s subscribers easily put it into the upper echelon of streamers, and the fact that Xfinity internet subscribers get a subscription for free certainly doesn’t hurt.
Despite the loss of subscribers, business looked a lot healthier for Peacock year-over-year. According to insights, Comcast reported a $348 million loss at Peacock compared to $651 million a year before, likely due to the price hike. There’s still a long path to profitability, and that’s if Peacock can ever actually turn a profit. At the very least, things are looking better than they were a year ago for the NBC streamer.
Another big factor working in Peacock’s favor is their partnership with WWE. This service now offers all of WWE’s live events like SummerSlam and WrestleMania, so wrestling fans have no choice but to sign up if they want to keep up with everything. Later this year, NBC will also bring back WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event. However, the WWE deal runs until 2026, and the writing might already be on the wall for Peacock to lose all the WWE content to, you guessed it, Netflix. Beginning in January, WWE’s flagship show Raw is heading to Netflix, and it would make sense for all the WWE content to follow in the future. Of course, that’s still a few years away, so it might be too early to sound the alarm just yet.