Peacock's hit series 'Love Island, USA' Ben Symons/Peacock NBCUniversal‘s streaming platform Peacock may finally turn a profit next quarter, Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh signaled on Thursday. The June quarter would mark Peacock’s first-ever profit; the streamer was soft-launched in spring 2020 and hard-launched in summer 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Peacock’s rollout, timed to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, was stunted. Those 2020 summer games finally happened the following year, though the spectacle was still far below the event’s typical level.
Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong told analysts on an earnings call that the streamer has seen a “meaningful inflection point with Peacock expected to approach profitability” in the near-term.
“I think the prospect for ongoing and durable profitability for Peacock is what we have our sights on,” Cavanagh said during the Q&A portion of Comcast’s Q1 conference call with media analysts.
Peacock lost $432 million in the first quarter of 2026, which measures January through March. The platform reached 46 million subscribers by March 31, 2026. Turning a profit out of what is the current quarter would be quite the swing.
There is reason for the optimism. Peacock’s first quarter was marred by the recognition of half its NBA season costs consolidated into a three-month period (because half of Peacock’s games were scheduled from January 1-March 31). The second quarter will carry about half the hoops’ cost of the first — roughly 25 percent of Peacock’s NBA games came in Q4 2025 and a similar amount tip off in Q2 2026.
Overall Q1 revenue at the streaming platform came to $2.0 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the year-ago period and $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven by increased paid subscribers and higher average rates. Peacock had a hell of a February, dubbed “Legendary February” by NBCUniversal, with the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl LX and the NBA’s All-Star Weekend all consolidated into a few-week period. At the end of 2025, Peacock had 44 million subs.
The first quarter of this year marked NBCU’s separation from Versant. At its most basic, NBCUniversal (under Comcast) keeps NBC, Bravo, Peacock and the studios. Versant got the cable leftovers and the digital assets.
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