But you know, we have adjusted. We have been going up against fiber competition now for over 15 years, and it is–we’ve made adjustments, we’ve done, I think very well in going toe-to-toe exactly as Brian as laid it out, that our long term game plan is to focus on a better network, ubiquitous network, better products, surround it with the full portfolio of better products and not chase units just for the sake of it, and we’ve had moments going up against fiber where they’ve gone way down market, they’ve become rational, we’ve had different cycles, and so I think we’ve made adjustments and we have proven that we more than hold our own in that footprint. What we’re seeing now is kind of an intense, more intense competitive focus around the lower end of the market, and that’s why we’re segmenting.
That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, never losing sight, though, that we’re going to have a better product than anybody in the marketplace, a better network, and backing it up with better devices that can eventually, as we get to multi-gig symmetrical–and that’s the key, every single application ubiquitously delivered, that’s our focus. It’s a tough competitive environment, but I think we have a unique, differentiated approach.
Mike Cavanagh: On Peacock, I mean, we’re very pleased, as both Jason and I said earlier, with a quarter where we ended at 33.5 million subs, three and a half years in. We are at a place now where we really are seeing traction in our approach to providing a service for consumers that is a combination of both entertainment and sports and how those two go together, very much a reflection, as we said from the beginning, of our–a mirror image of what we see as our strength at NBC Universal itself. When you look at this quarter in particular, you end up with a–start with a wildcard game that brought in a tremendous number of subs, ahead of where we expected it to be, and then retention that was ahead of where we expected it to be, and so that’s obviously great and the power of sports to bring audiences together, and we’ll stay committed because of our strength in sports.
But when you really reflect on what then happened in the weeks that followed, our viewing was at record highs across all parts of our non-sports portfolio, and in fact in the quarter, we launched our biggest original, Ted, to the greatest success of any of the originals we’ve ever launched, and Traders too, our reality series on Peacock. Both of those were in the Nielsen top 10 streaming in the earlier part of the year. I think we see the two–you know, the parts of the portfolio interplaying well with each other, and obviously the strength of our move studio, which we talked about earlier with Oppenheimer and Holdovers, and now coming up in future quarters Kung Fu Panda 4, that is another great source of strength into our portfolio, so I think you can expect to see us having a very broad approach to it’s sports, it’s originals, it’s next-day airing of NBC content, it’s our library, and it’s our pay-one movies – all of those things going into a service that we think is one of the best values in streaming and a very distinct place over time in the streaming marketplace for consumers.
When you look ahead from where we started the year, we are now in–continue to focus hard on retaining the growth in subs we had. Second quarter will be a little lighter in terms of the cadence of our content, but when you look to the middle of the year, we’ve got Olympics, right after that we’ve got the return of NFL, Big 10, and our exclusive NFL game in Sao Paulo, Brazil, along with a tremendous movie slate – Fall Guy, Twisters, Despicable Me 4, in addition to Kung Fu Panda 4. We feel great about what we’re doing and the progress we’re making, and it’s very consistent with the way we’ve described Peacock as taking advantage of what makes us great at NBC Universal to begin with and taking our existing strengths and assets into a digital future.
That’s–and it’s one of our six big growth drivers, so glad to get a chance to comment on it. Thank you.
Marci Ryvicker: Thanks Steve. Operator, we have time for one last question.
Operator: Thank you. Our final question today is coming from Jonathan Chaplin from New Street. Your line is now live.
Jonathan Chaplin: Thanks. One for Dave and one for Jason. Dave, taking a step back from the increased competitive intensity you’re seeing in the broadband market, I would love your perspective on how the overall market is trending. As we tally up all the adds in the quarter, it looks like we’re sort of trending to somewhere around half of what we normally see for the industry in the first quarter. Everybody’s adds are down, and I’m wondering if you’ve got any thoughts as to what might be driving that. Then Jason, on the segmentation strategy, you hit the low end of the market with some offers last year and then pulled back, because you were worried about cannibalization. I’m wondering how the Now–you’ve sort of structured Now differently so you don’t end up seeing that cannibalization impact. Thank you.
Dave Watson: Hey Jonathan, Dave. Let me start with the broadband in its entirety, the whole market and a viewpoint. Let me begin with the broadband market as a whole is still growing, maybe at a slower pace than it was last year and the year before, but there’s still going to be a pretty healthy amount of net adds in 2024 and likely beyond. The right way, though, in addition to that–I think everything we’ve talked about before, the right way we think to look about it is, is holding our own, growing relationships responsibly, but it’s also where the market is going and how broadband is being used. As we’ve talked about, the utility of the broadband product itself is only going up, so when you look at the health of the entire category, it’s the relationships but it’s also the overall usage and consumption, and for us, you’ve seen usage is up double digits, broadband-only subs using over 700 gigabytes of data a month, over 70% of our subscriber base is on speed tiers of 50 megs or more, and nearly a third of our customers are on a gig.
Those are great trends for us over the long term and gives us the great confidence as we’re investing and continue to invest in a better network and a better customer experience, as Brian has said. You know, when you look at things, I think it’s clearly competitive, as we’ve talked about. One other factor that enters into it in some cases in certain segments, there’s some people that revert back to mobile only – that can happen, so there’s a variety of factors that could enter into it. But overall as a category and a growth opportunity, quite optimistic about broadband.
Jason Armstrong: Hey Jonathan, let me start on segmentation, and then Dave probably wants to chime in as well. On Now, I think what’s interesting and exciting about it is it’s a dedicated flanker brand strategy. We’ve had prepaid offers in the past, sort of wedged into our existing portfolio. This is a more dedicated and branded strategy around it. By the way, the branding around this has worked very well in our U.K. market for Sky – it’s actually where the brand name came from, so we expect this to have some resonance. I would point out, if you look at where it’s sort of targeted, we’ve got 100 meg offer for $30, it’s inclusive of taxes, fees and equipment. We’ve got a $45 offering that’s 200 megs and inclusive as well – very competitive versus fixed wireless, right, that is in this range maybe slightly higher without the same reliability and ubiquity we have.
Mike Cavanagh: Yes, adding onto that, Jonathan, again we’ve been doing prepaid broadband for a while – years, and we needed to refresh it, needed to update it and put it in a more competitive position. The prepaid mobile is new and Now TV is relatively new, but it’s a segmented approach, and if you think about–you know, it’s all-in pricing, it’s very simple, it’s really easy. There’s no contracts, no credit checks. Customers can sign up, pause, cancel online anytime. It’s a very straightforward but feature-light product as we keep our focus on the high end in terms of fully featured things – we’ll continue to do that, but this just gives us a brand, gives us a product suite to be able to clearly define segmentation in a way that we can manage through.
Marci Ryvicker: Thanks Jonathan, and we want to thank everyone on the call for joining us this morning.
