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Catalog Breakdown Reveals NBC And Bravo's Critical Value To Comcast

Friday, 22 November 2024, 8:19 am
Press Release: Parrot Analytics

Comcast’s decision to spin off most of its linear assets paves the way for similar moves by its legacy media peers.

An analysis of catalog demand share by release type underscores why NBC and Bravo are so valuable to NBCUniversal: both significantly over perform in audience demand, solidifying their importance to Comcast's entertainment strategy.

While NBCUniversal’s linear networks still generate valuable free cash flow, their declining status makes a spinoff a logical step. Retaining top-performing networks like NBC and Bravo ensures they can continue fueling Peacock’s growth.

This move allows NBCU to leverage its premium linear strengths while offloading under performers that could weigh down its share price as the pay-TV market continues to shrink.

Audience Demand by Release Type

Broadcast series, mostly from NBC, accounted for 12.9% of the supply for series available on Peacock in Q3 2024, and 36.1% of the demand. This means demand for broadcast series over-performed supply by a margin of 2.8x.
Meanwhile, cable accounted for 34.1% of the series available on Peacock and 38.7% of the audience demand. While this is still a positive ROI, it represents an over-performance of just 1.1x.
Separating out Bravo further demonstrates its value to the future of NBCU. The reality powerhouse accounted for 5.7% of supply share, and 9.8% of demand share, an over-performance of 1.72x.
Peacock originals were underwater when comparing demand to supply, with a ratio of 0.88x.
NBCU’s decision to focus on monetizing the broad reach of broadcast — especially sports rights — while cutting its cable losses is one that will be closely watched and likely followed by Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Disney in 2025.

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Parrot Analytics

Global television demand measurement

Parrot Analytics is the leading global content demand analytics company for the multi-platform TV business. With the world's largest TV audience demand datasets, the company currently tracks more than 1.5B daily expressions of demand in over 100 languages from 200+ countries to reveal the content consumers engage with and watch the most across platforms.

As a trusted partner to some of the biggest media companies and content creators in the world, Parrot Analytics optimises content workflows in real time. The company's TV analytics products result in better production, distribution, acquisition and marketing decisions, as well as accelerated SVOD platform success.