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Emma Roth
Peacock’s exclusive NFL holiday game raked in almost 10 million viewers.

Over the holiday weekend, Peacock aired its first exclusive NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers, where it averaged about 9.9 million viewers.

That’s still a far cry from Sunday Night Football viewership, though. In October, a Sunday Night Football game between the Cowboys and 49ers averaged 26.1 million viewers when aired on both Peacock and NBC.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Richard Lawler
Comcast’s internet and cable TV prices are going up.

No one from the company would comment on the record, but a statement to Bloomberg blames rising prices for Xfinity — reportedly about 3 percent on average and $3 per month for internet-only service — on how “Rising programming costs continue to drive the highest increase in customers’ bills.”

You’d think that maybe a massive check on the way from Disney or owning its own studio (as noted below) would help with that instead, but just like the streamers as well as its fellow service providers AT&T and Verizon earlier this year, prices keep going up.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Emma Roth
Peacock now has 30 million paying subscribers.

Comcast CEO Mike Cavanagh revealed the number during the UBS Global Media and Communications on Monday, where he also said the company rakes in about $10 per user every month. Peacock axed its free plan for new subscribers earlier this year and recently raised prices across its two remaining tiers.

That’s one pricey subscription

Netflix is at an all-time high. Disney is cracking down on password sharing. And Apple TV Plus has doubled its prices. Will the streaming squeeze ever end?

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Emma Roth
Peacock added 4 million paid subscribers this quarter.

That’s an 80 percent increase over the same time last year, bringing Peacock’s total subscriber base to 28 million in the US. Comcast started making Xfinity subscribers pay for Peacock in June, which likely has something to do with the increase in paid members.

Peacock revenue jumped $830 million as well, reflecting the service’s subscriber growth and its recent price hike that brought the ad-supported plan to $5.99 and the ad-free plan to $11.99.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Umar Shakir
Comcast has... EV charging stations?

Comcast Smart Solutions, the company’s commercial connected infrastructure division, will offer connected EV chargers made by NovaCharge, at commercial and residential complexes where it has its large-scale Comcast Business and Xfinity Communities set up.

So if a landlord / building owner with Comcast service wants EV chargers on the property, they could have one less vendor to deal with. And if Comcast does well with support, perhaps it won’t need to offer charger decommissioning options.

guy plugging in Tesla at a charging station, is happy
A Level 2 charger offering by NovaCharge.
Image: NovaCharge
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Richard Lawler
A real-time reaction to the actors’ strike.

Two out of the big three Hollywood labor unions are on strike, citing streaming and AI as major issues, and actors are starting to picket offices for companies like Warner Bros., Netflix, and Amazon. This screengrab from CNBC captures the initial reaction of Wall Street.

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Emma Roth
NBCUniversal puts a new exec, Donna Langley, in charge of film and TV.

She will now head up NBCU’s entertainment divisions, Deadline reports. Susan Rovner, who previously led TV and streaming content, leading projects including Poker Face, is leaving.

Mark Lazarus is getting promoted to Chairman, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, overseeing the ad sales, the TV networks, Peacock, and NBC Sports.

The restructuring comes just a couple of months after Comcast President Mike Cavanaugh stepped in for former CEO Jeff Shell, who was accused of having an “inappropriate relationship” at the company.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Emma Roth
Comcast is quarreling with Disney over its decision not to expand Hulu internationally.

After Comcast found out that Disney quietly blocked Comcast’s ability to make major decisions about Hulu, the WSJ reports they made a deal saying Disney would continue to “aggressively” expand the streaming service.

However, Disney never brought Hulu to international markets and only released the service under its Star branding in foreign countries. This reportedly set off an arbitration dispute, as the two also wrangle over a buyout to end their shared ownership and for how much.

Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Richard Lawler
Linda Yaccarino has resigned from NBCUniversal, clearing the way to take over Twitter soon.

On Thursday night Elon Musk said he’s hiring a new CEO for Twitter who will start in about six weeks, but didn’t name them. That’s apparently because the reported selection, Linda Yaccarino, was preparing a presentation for advertisers at her existing job with NBCUniversal.

Now NBCUniversal announced Yaccarino has resigned, so we may not have to wait six weeks to get the news officially confirmed.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Emma Roth
Peacock added two million paid subscribers last quarter.

The streaming service now has a total of 22 million paying subscribers, according to Comcast’s earnings report today — a major increase from the 13 million paid subscribers it had at the same time last year.

This increase could be related to the company’s decision to take away Peacock’s free tier in February, but it’ll be even more to see how many Xfinity customers stick around for Poker Face once Comcast starts making them pay for Peacock this June.

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Chris Welch
NBCUniversal’s CEO has been ousted after “inappropriate relationship.”

Comcast abruptly announced the departure of NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell on Sunday afternoon. A longtime veteran of the company, Shell admitted “I had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, which I deeply regret.” His exit is effective immediately.

Shell had been CEO since January 2020 and oversaw the launch of NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. But after an investigation conducted by outside counsel, Comcast said his stepping down was a “mutual” decision. The company is due to report earnings on Thursday.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Richard Lawler
Peacock’s latest streaming addition: morning cable news shows.

Instead of an Oscar-bait movie or more sports, Peacock is adding Morning Joe from MSNBC and Squawk Box from CNBC starting on March 28th.

While missing out on cable news is a feature for some cord-cutters, others may want their morning updates without paying the cable-like prices for packages like Hulu with Live TV or YouTube TV, especially after CNN Plus went 90 in less than a month.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Chris Welch
Super Bowl LVII will be available in Dolby Vision on Comcast.

Fox is broadcasting this year’s Big Game on February 12th. And while most of us will have to settle for the standard upscaled “4K” presentation and regular HDR, Comcast is adding something extra: the game will be offered in Dolby Vision for Xfinity X1 cable customers.

“Comcast is taking the 4K HDR feed sent to them from Fox, which they analyze and send through Dolby’s live Dolby Vision production workflow and tools,” Dolby spokesperson Rachel Lowery told The Verge.

I have many questions. Stay tuned for more details.

Image: Comcast
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The Verge
Richard Lawler
Green light.

Besides Elon Musk, other businesses also have quarterly reports. Today that list includes Intel later this afternoon, and Comcast, which said it shed 440,000 TV subscribers in three months but added 365,000 customers to Xfinity Mobile.

For now, we’re looking at keyboards and controllers, as Sony’s new $199.99 DualSense Edge gamepad is available, but only directly from Sony. Check out our review to see if it’s worth the high price.

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Jay Peters
G4 is gone, again, and now we know why it collapsed.

Comcast abruptly shut down the gaming-focused channel less than a year after it launched, and The Washington Post has a big report about how things went south.

Executives apparently couldn’t decide on a strategy, and the network spent huge sums of money on hosts and guest appearances. Also, the son of Comcast’s CEO had an office based on Emperor Palpatine’s throne room. Seriously!

Why G4 failed

[Washington Post]

Comcast is shutting down its gamer-centric G4 channel, againComcast is shutting down its gamer-centric G4 channel, again
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