Peacock’s Battle for Survival and the Catch 22 of Streaming

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw to briefly discuss Matt’s experience at the White House Correspondents' Dinner before diving into the latest struggles for Peacock after a first-quarter loss of $432M despite increasing its subscriber base by 22 percent. They dig into why the streamer is struggling despite its association with a very successful movie studio, its strong reality TV slate, and its valuable NFL rights, and discuss the overall paradox of the streaming business in 2026 (00:00). Matt finishes the show with a prediction about Netflix's new Los Angeles headquarters (25:23). Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Lucas Shaw Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jon Jones Theme Song: Devon Renaldo This episode is brought to you by AMC+. Start your free trial today at join.amcplus.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Isn't life grande?
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0:23.3	Protein never tasted so good with Starbucks new protein cold foam.
0:27.7	Subject to availability while stocks last.
0:34.7	This episode of The Town is presented to you by AMC Networks.
0:38.7	Billy Magnuson and Zach Galfinacus star in the new series The Audacity on AMC and AMC Plus.
0:45.2	Influence rises, people unravel, and CEO meltdowns are business as usual among Silicon Valley elite.
0:51.6	Executive produced by Jonathan Glasser, a writer-producer of Succession
0:55.4	and Better Call Saul. Watch new episodes of The Audacity, Sundays exclusively on AMC and AMC Plus.
1:02.9	It is Monday, April 27th. Another quarter, another big loss for Peacock, $432 million, about twice the losses last year in this same period.
1:14.4	That's more than $11 billion that the Comcast NBC Universal Streaming Service has lost since it launched in 2020.
1:22.5	The Comcast said it is, quote, expected to approach profitability this quarter.
1:27.0	Not sure what that means quite exactly.
1:29.5	This situation might surprise people in town because it does feel like Peacock finally has been
1:34.6	getting there in subscribers. It's at 44 million in US alone. Remember, this is a US only service.
1:41.0	And it has shows that people kind of are watching and talking about the traders made the
1:45.9	top 10 in nielsen for the first quarter of the year love island is huge and all her fault was a big hit
1:51.4	in the fall and the universal movie studio which is in pumping out hits like wicked and super mario those all
1:57.8	debut first on peacock in the uS., though they then cycle through to Netflix
	...

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