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With cable in decline, Comcast bets on hybrid strategy: Peacock revenue grows, but subscriber slowdown raises questions ahead of its NBA media rights rollout.

Peacock unveils live advertising features at CES: A busy calendar in 2026 has the company fleshing out its ad capabilities.

Comcast gives details on its spinout of several NBCU cable networks: As Peacock takes center stage, legacy TV networks must adapt to stay relevant.

NBC launches early NBA campaign: $2.4 billion annual rights deal includes WNBA games, Peacock exclusives, and 'Sunday Night Basketball' debut in 2026.

Comcast Q3 performance fueled by streaming and live sports: Olympics and Peacock growth attract high-value audiences for advertisers.

Peacock soars but has catching up to do: Olympics gave the streamer its best month ever in August, but viewership was still dwarfed by Netflix and YouTube.

In part one of this two-part podcast episode, we discuss some medium-term predictions that are too specific to be 100% certain about but could still come true, including: why the sentiment towards GenAI might turn, what to expect from Google鈥檚 new consent workflow now that it is not phasing out third-party cookies from Chrome, and why Tubi might be about to leapfrog Hulu, Disney+, and Peacock. Tune in to the discussion with host Marcus Johnson, and analysts Ross Benes, Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, and Max Willens.

Peacock keeps losing money, but its parent company Comcast continues to buy into streaming. If Peacock鈥檚 ad revenues make a meaningful jump over the next year, it will likely be due to its sports programming investments. Peacock struck ratings gold with its Olympics coverage this summer, which contributed to an increase of 2.8 million subscribers during the first week.

Seven weeks after the game, 71% of those new subscribers had not canceled Peacock. NBCUniversal and Amazon paid a fortune for NBA rights in the hopes that Peacock and Prime Video would continue to gain and maintain subscribers due to exclusive sports rights. We forecast that live sports viewing will keep shrinking on traditional TV and growing on digital services.

What鈥檚 next: The separation is good news for Peacock, which has seen significant revenue gains in recent quarters thanks to sports content like the Paris Olympics and can spend aggressively without linear鈥檚 decline dragging it down. The path for SpinCo, however, is less clear.

Peacock is also adding NBA games to a sports roster that includes NFL games, college football, college basketball, soccer, NASCAR, and Olympics coverage. The Roku Channel features Sunday morning MLB games. Sports broadcasts on linear TV networks are streamable through digital pay TV services like Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV.