Peacock subscribers will see ads as soon as they open the streaming app or website next year. It’s a bold new strategy to attract advertisers — something that’s becoming increasingly important for subscription-based streaming services — but it also risks alienating viewers.
As reported diversethe new type of ads will be displayed on the profile selection page that appears when a subscriber launches Peacock. Starting next year, instead of the profile page just displaying your different Peacock profiles, an ad image will dominate most of the page. The NBCUniversal-owned character circles assigned to user profiles will be moved to a vertical column on the left side of the screen, as shown in the image. You can see here.
To avoid seeing what NBCUniversal calls “access ads” every time you open Peacock, you need to sign up for Peacock’s most expensive plan, which is ad-free and starts at $17 per month (ad-based Peacock plans start at $8 per month).
NBCUniversal’s announcement claims that Peacock will be the first streaming service to implement this type of advertising. But this may not be the boast the entertainment giant thinks it is, as subscribers may quickly find the startup’s announcements annoying.
Peacocks don’t make money
Over the past couple of years, it has become increasingly important for streaming services to generate revenue beyond subscription fees. Peacock and many other streaming services have struggled to achieve profitability after spending years focusing on producing and licensing expensive content 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, Comcast, parent company of NBCUniversal, reported that the service lost $217 million in EBITDA, compared to a loss of $436 million in the same quarter of 2024. Peacock, meanwhile, struggled to grow viewership and earned The same number of subscribers Since the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter of 2024, Peacock had 31 million subscribers.