World Cup helps propel Peacock to record subscribers

Peacock, a Comcast streaming service under the NBC umbrella, gained record numbers of subscribers thanks in part to its airing of the World Cup, Comcast reported on Thursday.

The streaming service this summer aired live Telemundo's Spanish-language coverage of the World Cup. The event being hosted in North America meant many games aired in primetime, boosting viewership numbers to record levels for all affiliates.

Sharing a quarterly summary that showed profit for the first time in the service's six-year history, Comcast revealed an additional two million subscribers for the April-June quarter, taking the streamer's total up to 48 million.

Revenue also rose to approximately $1.9 billion, while earnings reached $189 million.

All figures were ahead of estimates.

Co-CEO Mike Cavanaugh warned that profitability may still vary quarter to quarter, while also expressing confidence that Peacock's involvement in the distribution of such sports programming as the NFL, MLB, NBA, Olympics and the Premier League will continue to provide stability.

"In six years, it's gotten to incredible scale at a pace that we're very proud of and very much dovetails with the strategy for how we build and program NBC itself," Cavanagh said.

--Field Level Media