Tag: NBCUniversal

Netflix Opens Floodgate Streaming Universal Theatrical Releases

Netflix has ramped up exclusive access to Universal Pictures theatrical movie releases.

The streamer this year bumped up its Pay-1 licensing window from 2027 for Universal theatrical releases, reportedly replacing Prime Video as the streaming home for Universal’s theatrical slate.

Netflix has a similar $7 billion global Pay-1 agreement with Sony Pictures Entertainment, with plans to incorporate the strategy with Warner Bros. Discovery after its $82.7 billion acquisition closes.

The expedited Universal deal gives Netflix exclusive streaming access for a 10-month period to Universal Pictures, Focus Features, DreamWorks Animation and Illumination theatrical movies after an initial four-month window on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. Peacock then gets the movies back for another four-month window.

As a result, Netflix on Jan. 26 began streaming Megan 2.0, followed by Honey Don’t on Feb. 3 and How to Train Your Dragon on Feb. 10. Jurassic World Rebirth is set to begin streaming on Feb. 28. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion join the platform March 1.

Pending releases include Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale on March 7, Nobody 2 on March 14, The Bad Guys 2 on March 21, and Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie is expected on May 23.

Other titles include Anemone on March 28, Him on April 19, Oscar-nominated Bugonia on April 26, and The Black Phone 2 on May 16.

Bela Bajaria, chief content officer at Netflix, says the Universal movies have always resonated with subscribers, and adding more studio titles makes sense. 

“By combining these licensed titles with our Netflix original programming, we can offer our members an exceptional entertainment package with an even greater selection of films to enjoy,” Bajaria said in a statement last year.

Wicked: For Good and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 are expected on the platform this summer. Other Universal theatrical titles destined for Netflix include pending theatrical releases Minions & Monsters, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, The Odyssey and Violent Night 2, among others.

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Milan Cortina Olympics Most-Watched, Streamed Winter Games in 12 Years

NBCUniversal’s coverage of the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics averaged 26.5 million viewers across television and streaming platforms through the first five nights (Feb. 6-10), according to NBCUniversal, Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

The platforms include NBC, Peacock, NBCUniversal digital platforms and Versant’s CNBC and USA Network.

Led by the NBC broadcast network, all five days of Milan Cortina Winter Olympic coverage (since the Feb. 6 Opening Ceremony) have topped 20 million viewers and have posted significant gains over 2022.

This marks the most-watched start to a Winter Games since the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and represents a 93% increase over the same period for the 2022 Beijing Games (which averaged 13.7 million viewers).

NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service contributed to the tally, generating more video consumption than the previous Winter Games combined.

Through Feb. 10, Peacock totaled 5.3 billion minutes, more than double the entire 2018 PyeongChang Games (2.2 billion minutes), and 36% higher than the full 2022 Beijing Games (3.9 billion).

Feb. 7 coverage generated a record 1.3 billion minutes of streaming, the first time a Winter Olympics day topped 1 billion minutes.

Through Feb. 12, more than 200 million Americans had watched at least some portion of NBCUniversal’s “Legendary February” coverage (including Super Bowl LX and the Olympics).

The TV ratings jump is attributed to more favorable time zones (Italy is six hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast compared, with more than 13 hours for recent Games in Asia), allowing for more live daytime windows.

NBCUniversal owns the U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games through 2036, which include Los Angeles (2028), the French Alps (2030), Brisbane (2032), Utah (2034), and the 2036 Summer Games.

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Universal Content Licensing, Theatrical Revenue, Profit Decline in Q4 2025

NBCUniversal’s studio business operations Jan. 29 reported fourth-quarter (ended Dec. 31, 2025) operating income of $351 million on revenue of $3.03 billion. That compared with operating income of $569 million (down 38%) on revenue of $3.27 billion (down 7%) in the previous-year period.

The studio put much of the blame for the revenue decline on the comparative box office results of Wicked: For Good ($526.5 million globally) and Black Phone 2 ($132.2 million) in the quarter compared with the first Wicked and The Wild Robot in the last quarter of 2024.

Wicked generated $758.8 million in worldwide revenue, including $475 million across North American screens, Wild Robot generated $334.5 million in global ticket sales, including $143.9 million domestically.

Content licensing revenue, which includes home entertainment, decreased 8.3% to almost $2.2 billion, from $2.4 billion, primarily due to the timing of when content was made available by Universal’s television and film studios.

Wicked was among the top-selling and renting titles in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2025. Other top-selling titles from the studio in the quarter included Jurassic World Rebirth, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and Nobody 2.

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Peacock Adds 3 Million Quarterly Subs, Ups Fiscal-Year Operating Loss and Revenue

NBCUniversal’s Peacock subscription streaming video platform added 3 million paid subscribers in the fourth quarter (ended Dec. 31, 2025), to finish the year with 44 million members.

The year-end tally, which was up 22% from 36 million paid subscribers at the end of 2024, ended a streak of three consecutive quarters of no subscriber growth.

Peacock revenue in the quarter grew 23% to $1.6 billion, from $1.3 billion, while full-year revenue increased 10% to $5.4 billion, from $4.9 billion in 2024.

Operating losses in the quarter increased more than 48% to $552 million, from $372 million, due in part to the fiscal impact of the new NBA distribution rights that began in the quarter, and the NFL playoff game. For the fiscal year, operating losses declined more than $700 million.

“Peacock has reached meaningful scale and continues to demonstrate improving monetization, giving us confidence in our ability to absorb near-term investments, including the first full year of the NBA. And in 2026, we expect Peacock losses to meaningfully improve again,” CFO Jason Armstrong said on the fiscal call.

The company had previously disclosed that Peacock and NBC Sports would be absorbing the brunt of its share of the new 11-year, $77 billion NBA distribution deal with ESPN (ESPN Unlimited) and Prime Video in the fourth quarter and beginning of the 2026 fiscal year.

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Peacock Becomes First Streamer to Adopt Dolby’s Full Suite of Picture and Sound Innovations

LAS VEGAS — Dolby Laboratories and NBCUniversal on Monday, Jan. 5, announced Peacock will be the first streaming platform to embrace Dolby’s full suite of advanced picture and sound innovations.

The announcement, made on the eve of CES 2026 at the Dolby Live amphitheater at the Park MGM Hotel and Casino, builds on a partnership that began 10 years ago with the 2016 Olympics. Last September, Peacock announced it would start serving up NFL games in Dolby Atmos, an immersive, spatial audio technology that allows sounds to come from all around and above the listener for a more realistic and lifelike experience.

The Monday announcement, hailed by Dolby and NBCU as a first-of-its-kind technology integration, will see a gradual rollout of both Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision — an advanced high dynamic range (HDR) video technology that enhances picture quality by optimizing brightness, contrast, and color on a scene-by-scene or even frame-by-frame basis using dynamic metadata — to Peacock’s portfolio of movies, original productions, and live sports and events.

Peacock is extending the availability of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos across live sports over the coming year, including Sunday Night Football, NBA and MLB. Peacock is also the first streamer to announce its commitment to support Dolby Vision 2 and Dolby AC-4, anticipated to launch later this year.

Peacock is currently gearing up for a live sports streaming bonanza in February, with the Winter Olympics in Italy, the NBA All-Star game and the Super Bowl.

The announcement was made by John Couling, SVP of entertainment at Dolby Laboratories, and David Bohunek, SVP of global video engineering at NBCUniversal, in a “fireside chat” moderated by veteran technology reporter Jake Krol.

“We see a great opportunity to push the video quality alongside the audio even to higher levels, so we’re excited about that,” Bohunek said.

Couling said live sports is a good place to start. “Dolby is known for movies and music, but sports actually is a really deep part of our heritage,” he said. “We first worked with NBCUniversal on the 2016 Rio Olympics, but we’ve been involved in sports much longer than that — actually, for decades. Our first 5.1 broadcast here in North America was back in the late 1990s, and the first Super Bowl in 5.1 was in 2000. So we’ve been involved in the sound of sports for some time, and it’s really all driven by the fact that we want fans to be able to get the very best experience, and that means making them feel like they’re there–making them feel like they are part of being in that stadium or that arena.”

Couling said Peacock is the right partner because the streamer and Dolby both share a vision of placing the viewer “in the emotional heart of the action.”

Both companies, he said, also believe in “pushing technology, but doing that for a purpose that goes far beyond the technology itself. It’s for the purpose of creating that wonderful experience, that immersion, of giving people choice and capabilities, of making the experience just as good as it can possibly be. And when we work with a partner who’s really creating some of the most important and powerful content, they challenge us with can we do this, can we do that, can we make it do the following. And it’s great to be driven by that kind of passion.”

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Peacock also is preparing to adopt the next generation of Dolby innovation. Unveiled at IFA 2025, Dolby Vision 2 is the successor to Dolby Vision, which was originally introduced a decade ago. The company says Dolby Vision 2 “is designed to meet the evolving expectations of today’s viewers and unlock the most out of your television. From helping solve the debate on whether the picture is ‘too dark’ to delivering a more cinematic experience without distracting judder or soap opera effects, Dolby Vision 2 delivers a more authentic, captivating picture.”

Dolby AC-4 is Dolby’s most advanced and efficient audio codec to date, delivering crystal-clear sound with up to 50% greater efficiency than traditional codecs, according to the company. Dolby AC-4 offers new personalization and dialog enhancement features and unlocks the highest audio fidelity possible while using a fraction of the bandwidth of traditional codecs.

Peacock’s Bohunek welcomes the new capabilities that will become available with Dolby AC-4.

“I actually have a little story to share,” he said. “I think it was our first NFL exclusive game we had on Peacock, and during half time we got a phone call from somebody pretty important in our company saying, ‘Hey, in the second half, I really want to hear the commentary more. Can you change that?’ And then two minutes later, we got another phone call from somebody very important in the NFL, saying, ‘Hey, I want to hear the stadium noise more. It’s more exciting that way.”

With Dolby AC-4, Bohunek said, “the customers will be able to choose, and if they want to hear only the dialog, or only the stadium sound, or somewhere in between, it’s their choice. And that’s pretty exciting.”

Peacock Streaming Helps Lift Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Viewership to Record High

The combo showing of the 99th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC and Peacock drew an estimated audience of more than 34 million viewers, up 8% from last year, according to NBCUniversal, citing preliminary Nielsen data.

Peacock streaming viewership increased more than 26%, owing at least in part to the streamer’s gain of 5 million additional subscribers over the past 12 months.

The iconic parade began airing on NBC, and streaming on Peacock, at 8:30 a.m. in all time zones.

The 99th Macy’s Parade lineup featured more than 5,000 volunteers, 32 balloons, three balloonicles (cold-air inflatables maneuvered down the parade route by a vehicle inside of the balloon figure (27 floats, four specialty units, 33 clown groups, 11 marching bands performance groups, and such big-name pop stars as Cynthia Erivo, Busta Rhymes, Ciara, Jewel, Kool & the Gang, Lainey Wilson, Foreigner, Shaggy, Lil Jon, Darlene Love, Taylor Momsen, Debbie Gibson and Mickey Guyton. 

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Peacock Cuts Quarterly Operating Loss 50%; Revenue Dips 10%

NBCUniversal’s subscription streaming service Peacock Oct. 30 reported an operating loss of $217 million on revenue of $1.36 billion for the third quarter (ended Sept. 30). That compared with an operating loss of $436 million on revenue of $1.51 billion in the previous-year period.

Peacock saw ad revenue increase $1 million to $477 million, while distribution revenue (subscriptions) increased 9% to $883 million, from $773 million due to price hikes

The streamer’s subscriber count remained unchanged at 41 million paid subscribers — the same tally posted since the first quarter of 2025.

NBCUniversal’s media segment overall, which includes Peacock, had tough comparisons with the previous-year fiscal period, which included the Paris Olympics.

Domestic ad revenue plummeted more than 40% to $1.9 billion, from $3.3 billion in the prior-year quarter. Without the Olympics, ad revenue increased 2.6%.

Distribution revenue fell 13% to $2.8 billion, from $3.3 billion. Excluding the Olympics, revenue increased 1.5%.

Total media revenue dropped almost 20% to $6.6 billion, from $8.23 billion. Without the Games, media revenue increased 4.2%.

On the fiscal call, CFO Jason Armstrong said the new exclusive NBA season access on Peacock and NBC Sports will be both a boon and fiscal challenge in the near term.

“While we expect a positive impact on advertising and distribution revenue, it also introduces a new expense,” Armstrong said on the company’s fiscal call. “As we’ve said, we’ll straight-line the amortization of these sports rights, which will create some upfront dilution, particularly in the first season, with the game counts driving quarterly realization of this expense. But over time, we’ll offset this through advertising growth.”

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‘Landman’ Creator Taylor Sheridan Moving to Peacock From Paramount+ in 2029

Taylor Sheridan, the prolific creator of Paramount+ original shows “Yellowstone,” “Tulsa King,” “Landman,” “Special Ops: Lioness,” “1883,” “1923” and “Mayor of Kingstown,” among others, is reportedly taking his 101 Studios production company to NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform and Universal Pictures for a new five-year deal worth a reported $1 billion, beginning in 2029.

Taylor Sheridan

The move to NBCUniversal represents a major win for the Comcast-owned media giant. Sheridan has helped put Paramount+ on the map with original programs.

“Landman,” starring Billy Bob Thornton, generated a record-breaking 35-million global views on Paramount+, becoming the streamer’s most-watched original series.

Sweetening the deal for Sheridan was NBCUniversal’s willingness to allow the TV creator to expand his creativity at the movie theater. Donna Langley, chairwoman of Universal Pictures and Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and chief content officer, helped finalized the deal, according to the New York Times.

The deal could be a blow to new Paramount owner David Ellison, who, in an August media interview, heaped praise on Sheridan for helping to keep Paramount+ relevant.

“He is literally a singular genius with a perfect track record,” Ellison told the Hollywood Reporter. “If we can make this his home as long as he wants to tell stories, we want to do that.”

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Peacock’s ‘Love Island Games’ Season 2 Crowns Winners, Ups Viewing Minutes 124% From Season 1

Peacock crowned Isaiah Campbell and Lucinda Strafford as the winners of the streamer’s original “Love Island Games” season two. The couple survived viewers’ vote and the “mega-duel” against other couples Toby Aromolaran and Sydney Paight, and Tyrique Hyde and Justine Ndiba.

The two Islanders coupled up amid intense challenges, all-star bombshells testing their connection, and all-new twists and turns. A jury vote from their fellow Islanders resulted in Campbell being selected as the favorite in their couple and winning the largest cash prize in the reality show’s history, $250,000, but he chose love and split the earnings with Strafford.

During its nearly three-week run, season two is on pace to surpass 1 billion minutes streamed on Peacock, growing 124% versus the prior season, according to Peacock first-party data.

Since the season two launch on Sept. 16, “Love Island Games” ranks as the No. 2 streaming reality title for its first two weeks, according to Nielsen.

Beyond Nielsen measurement, which predominantly captures viewership of content on the television screen, Peacock first party data reveals that nearly 30% of the season two audience occurred on mobile devices, joining “Love Island USA” season seven and “Love Island: Beyond the Villa” season one as Peacock’s original shows for mobile consumption.

This season of “Love Island Games” boasted 560 million social impressions across Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube, ranking as the No. 2 most-social series across streaming since its premiere.

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NBCUniversal, Google Ink Long-Term Distribution Deal For Peacock, YouTube, Home Entertainment

NBCUniversal and Google announced a long-term distribution agreement to continue delivering a wide range of entertainment options across streaming video and vMVPD.

Under the agreement, NBCUniversal’s full portfolio of broadcast and cable networks will be available on YouTube TV, including NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, CNBC, Golf Channel, E!, Oxygen True Crime, MSNBC, USA, Syfy and Universo.

Later this fall, NBCUniversal will be launching the NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), which will be available on YouTube TV, allowing sports fans to access a broad range of programming from NBC Sports.

The Peacock subscription streaming service will be available in the coming months through YouTube Primetime Channels.

“This agreement positions us for continued growth and reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional entertainment to fans across platforms,” Matt Schnaars, president of platform distribution and partnerships for NBCUniversal, said in a statement.

The pact also includes short-form clips, highlights and shows from NBCUniversal’s programming on YouTube. Films and TV shows from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will continue to be available to buy or rent on Google TV, YouTube TV and YouTube, as well as library films from NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution being available to stream via SVOD on YouTube Premium and AVOD through YouTube Free Primetime Content. There’s also a multiyear extension of Peacock’s availability across Google’s Android platforms, including Google Play and Google TV.

“This deal builds on our long-standing partnership with NBCU while addressing the evolving media landscape and recognizing the importance of making content available where and how viewers want to watch it,” added Justin Connolly, VP and global head of media and sports at YouTube.

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