Peacock showing ads upon launch opens the door for more disruptive streaming ads

[Karlston]

Subscribers will start seeing ads when selecting a user next year.

Dakota Fanning (left) and Sarah Snook (right) in a scene from the Peacock original series All Her Fault.  

Credit: NBCUniversal

 

Peacock subscribers will see ads immediately upon opening the streaming app or website next year. It’s a bold new strategy for attracting advertisers—something that’s been increasingly important to subscription-based streaming services—but it also risks alienating viewers

 

As reported by Variety, the new type of ads will display on the profile selection page that shows when a subscriber launches Peacock. Starting next year, instead of the profile page just showing your different Peacock profiles, most of the page will be dominated by an advertorial image. The circles of NBCUniversal-owned characters selected for user profiles will be relegated to a vertical column on the screen’s left side, as you can see here.

 

To avoid seeing what NBCUniversal is calling “Arrival Ads” every time you open Peacock, you need to subscribe to Peacock’s most expensive plan, which is ad-free and starts at $17 per month (Peacock’s ad-based plans start at $8/month.)

 

NBCUniversal’s announcement claims that Peacock will be the first streaming service to implement this type of ad. But that may not be the brag the entertainment giant thinks it is, as subscribers may quickly find the startup ads disruptive.

Peacock isn’t making money

Over the past couple of years, it’s become increasingly important for streaming services to generate revenue beyond subscription fees. Peacock and many other streaming services have struggled with profitability after spending years focusing on pricey content production and licensing to attract subscribers.

 

For its part, Peacock has 41 million subscribers and isn’t profitable. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, shared in October, NBCUniversal parent company Comcast reported that the service lost $217 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, compared to losing $436 million in the same quarter in 2024. At the same time, Peacock has struggled to grow viewership and has had the same number of subscribers since Q1 2025. In Q1 2024, Peacock had 31 million subscribers.

 

Bundle deals that include Peacock have become more common this year, but subscriber growth has been evasive for Peacock, leading to heavy advertising. In search of ad dollars and subscribers, the service has also focused on live events. But those events are expensive, and costs are partly what prompted NBCUniversal to explore new ad formats for Peacock, executives said, according to Variety.

 

NBCUniversal also announced this week that Peacock will start showing ads on the vertical video feeds in its mobile app. Today, the service already shows full-screen ads when subscribers with ad plans hit pause and “Binge Ads” that show after someone streams two episodes of the same show consecutively.

 

Peacock’s ad business seems to be a bright spot. Comcast’s most recent earnings report largely attributed NBCUniversal’s ad growth of 2.6 percent to Peacock. A strong advertising arm could potentially help the service avoid more or steeper price hikes while it tries to become profitable.

 

Peacock’s new launch ads, however, represent a more disruptive type of ad that places another barrier between subscribers and content. With Peacock opening the door, other streaming services may also consider adopting more disruptive ad formats as more people turn to ad-supported streaming services due to rising subscription prices.

 

It will be problematic if all streaming services start viewing their platform’s launching pages as a “canvas” for the streaming service provider and its partners, as Alison Levin, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, discussed during a press conference announcing Arrival Ads.

 

Source

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Posted Friday 19 December 2025 at 12:16 pm AEST (my time).

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