Peacock Subscriptions Stay Flat at 41M, But ‘Love Island USA’ Shows Drawing Power

In its Q2 earnings report, Peacock parent company Comcast reported the streamer still has 41 million subscribers at the halfway mark of 2025. But things are changing in a big way for Peacock. The streamer just jacked up its prices by $3/month on every tier, making its ad-free plan $16.99/month. That price hike comes in anticipation of Peacock hosting the NBA this fall.

Normally, a lack of subscriber growth would be a “red alert” moment for a streaming service, but those numbers have become less important as streamers monetize their audiences with ads. Peacock reported revenue was up 18% to $1.2 billion.

Loving ‘Love Island’

The company specifically called out “Love Island USA” as an overachiever in its catalog. But how big an impact does the show have?

Analytics firm Antenna calculated that Peacock added 3 million subscribers in June alone, with 416,000 sign-ups between June 2-4, 2025 when the new season of “Love Island USA” premiered.

Reality shows have been a strength for Peacock. The company’s Bravo team has lots of experience in the reality genre and “Love Island” joins “The Traitors” as low-cost fan favorites. With the company dumping several TV channels to a new company called Versant, expect Comcast to focus even more on reality competitions.

The NBA on Peacock: Moment of Truth

Comcast execs are likely holding their breath for October 21, 2025. That’s when the 2025-26 NBA season tips off. Peacock now has access to many of the games previously telecast on TNT.

Peacock will get a Monday night NBA doubleheader each week. It will also simulcast two Tuesday night games that air on NBC. NBC/Peacock will get approximately 28 games in the first two rounds of the playoffs. At least half will be on NBC.

But will basketball fans sign up or just ignore the Peacock games? Plenty of games will be available elsewhere, but the playoffs will be a problem.

We won’t know the impact of the NBA on Peacock sign-ups until we get Q4 results early next year.

I still don’t recommend Peacock because it has too few shows worth watching and its movie library isn’t as valuable as other services like HBO Max or Netflix.