Universal might be looking to remove its movies from HBO Max and Netflix in order to boost its streaming service, Peacock. Universal is home to some of the biggest franchises in the industry including Fast & Furious, Jurassic Park, and Despicable Me to name a few. They are one of the biggest studios making movies today; however, all of these films are currently contracted to other streaming services that Universal does not own.
Peacock has been failing to be competitive against other streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+. In January, the company had announced that Peacock had reached 33 million sign-ups since the service launched last April. That sounds impressive until you discover that according to third-party data, about ninety percent of users only use the free tier. Another report in February suggested that only around 11.3 million households use the streaming service regularly. Universal never confirmed those numbers, but they also have never confirmed the number of active paid subscribers they do have either.
One issue that Peacock may be facing right now is that most of their biggest movies currently live on competing streaming services like HBO Max and Netflix. However, the contracts that are keeping this in place are due to expire this year. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that Universal is considering ending those contracts to bring over their content to Peacock.
This would a huge win for the streaming service, infusing the platform with some needed franchise fare and huge IP to entice more paying subscribers. If this were to happen, it would likely not affect HBO Max much. They already have a huge library of tentpole films and are even releasing some of their biggest Warner Bros. movies simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max. However, this could affect Netflix a lot more. As more and more studios develop their own streaming services, more and more big titles are being taken off of Netflix. This is a problem for them as Netflix's most-watched content is their licensed material. If that all goes away, will people stick around for only Netflix Originals?
The reason NBCUniversal is likely even considering doing this in the first place is because streaming is definitely the future of the industry. Even after the pandemic ends, habits have been formed as people got used to watching things at home. Universal's parent company Comcast is also feeling the pressure of cord-cutting, which is not likely to slow down any time soon. The company needs Peacock to succeed, and bringing some of their biggest franchise films to the service could be one way to do exactly that.
Source: Bloomberg