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Are The Office and Friends bets paying off for Peacock and HBO Max?

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The Verge logo. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. In mid-2020, Friends . On January 1st, 2021, made a similar move, leaving Netflix to . The shows, whose moves cost a combined $1 billion roughly, were designed as anchors for the new streaming platforms: they would bring subscribers in and keep them subscribed. Neither WarnerMedia nor NBCUniversal has given hard insights into how much Friends or The Office have driven subscriptions or retention, but new data from research firm Antenna provides some interesting context about the latter show. Here are the basics: The Office arriving on Peacock drove more signups than the nationwide launch, including a notable uptick in people signing up for the $10-a-month premium plan that allows them full ad-free access to all nine seasons. While sales of The Office on iTunes also saw an increase, Antenna’s team noticed a much bigger addition to Peacock subscribers than overall digital purchases. Peacock has grown . That’s 7 million more than the 26 million figure NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell . (It’s unclear how many of those users are paying the $10 ad-free premium plan or are streaming for free.)(Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media,&nbsp;The Verge’s parent company.)The Office seemingly performing well for Peacock, a relatively new streaming platform compared to Netflix or Hulu, isn’t surprising. It remained the most watched show on Netflix for several years before leaving. Shell told analysts on a Comcast earnings call at the end of January that viewership of The Office on Peacock was far outpacing viewership on Netflix. (Although he didn’t provide any data to back that up.) A streaming service can’t rely on just one show, though, and Shell said it’s the supplementary effect of The Office landing on Peacock that makes them feel confident in the streaming bet.“We’re seeing people who are watching&nbsp;The Office&nbsp;on Peacock are watching lots of our other comedies,” Shell told analysts. “It’s really driving&nbsp;Parks &amp; Recreation&nbsp;and really driving&nbsp;Brooklyn Nine-Nine, amongst others. It’s kind of an ecosystem.” In the United States, audience demand and interest in The Office increased once it left Netflix. Demand for the show was 39 percent higher within the first three days that it was on Peacock compared to the last day it was on Netflix, according to Parrot Analytics. Over the first 20 days the show was on Peacock, it maintained an increased demand. This indicated that “the rediscovery of this show by new audiences could be driving a longer term resurgence,” according to Wade Payson-Denney, an insight analyst at Parrot Analytics. “It’s really driving&nbsp;Parks &amp; Recreation&nbsp;and really driving&nbsp;Brooklyn Nine-Nine, amongst others. It’s kind of an ecosystem”Friends is a little less clear. WarnerMedia announced back in July 2020 that Friends was the most watched show on HBO Max, with The Flight Attendant coming in second and The Big Bang Theory in third, but it didn’t provide any data, making those statements effectively moot. Still, HBO Max has also seen subscriber growth, with , nearly doubling figures announced in October 2020. While most of that growth is likely more , subscribers may stick around for Friends and other library programming.Friends and The Office are perfect examples of “snackable TV.” They’re comfort programs that people return to time and time again. In 2019, Nielsen found that 72 percent of time spent watching Netflix was devoted to library programming, with The Office and Friends topping the list. Even if Friends and The Office aren’t always primary drivers, they may do their job of keeping people who sign up to watch Wonder Woman 1984 or Premier League games. If Friends and The Office keep people from canceling, they’ll have done their jobs. This is a similar philosophy behind Disney’s (bringing shows like How I Met Your Mother and 24) to its service in certain international markets. What’s perhaps most interesting is that having The Office and Friends leave Netflix has had little impact on Netflix’s business, according to Antenna. While some Netflix subscribers who signed up for Peacock in January 2021 canceled Netflix to switch over to Peacock, the number was so low that it had little impact on Netflix’s business. Turns out, people are more than willing to supplement their Netflix subscriptions with one or two others. That’s good news for quite a few companies. The remaining question is how many people keep their Peacock and HBO Max subscriptions all year-round. The streaming wars are not-so-secretly the “churn wars.”$6.99 per month or $69.99 if you pay annuallyMost PopularNApple’s satellite deal with Globalstar will probably save the company.Globalstar was an also-ran in satellite services, but Apple has basically taken over the company without taking it over. Here’s analyst Tim Farrar in FierceWireless:Yet getting the deal with Apple is still “pretty impressive,” he said. “It’s still very good to have gotten anything out of this because Globalstar has been languishing for years with revenues of not much more than $100 million a year and this is potentially going to nearly triple their revenues, so that’s a massive improvement in their satellite business,” Farrar said.DA good read on “the tyranny of WhatsApp groups.”Group chats are great, and are replacing social media for a lot of people. They also, this smart Guardian piece points out, flood your life with notifications and raise the stakes for reading them all. So what do you do? And can you ever get out? (This is a good companion to last week’s WSJ piece about , too.)[the Guardian]TAmazon Go’s ‘just walk out’ tech comes to the LA suburbs.The new Amazon Go Whittier location is enticing locals with $3 made-to-order Avocado Toast, kombucha on tap, and local beers from Smog City and Three Weavers brewing companies. Torrance location coming soon.[www.amazon.com]Must ReadsMust ReadsTYummy Google potato chips land in Japan.You can now enter an official&nbsp;&nbsp;in Japan to win boxes of Snow Cheese, Hazel Onion, Salty Lemon, or Obsidian Pepper flavored “Google Original Chips.” Get it?&nbsp;Original chips... because the&nbsp;&nbsp;will be powered by Google’s own Tensor G2 silicon. Mmm, cheese made from snow. Image: Google JapanA prototype of Meta’s VR headset has surfacedJYou can now listen to podcasts inside Twitter.If you pay Twitter, at least. The latest feature to join the Twitter Blue subscription is to the redesigned Spaces tab on iOS, which includes support for tuning into podcasts.I am not entirely convinced this will take off (short-form social network + long-form audio = 🤨), but I can see a compelling use case if Twitter eventually lets podcasters promote clips from their shows. My colleague Ariel Shapiro wrote about the launch last month:PodcastsPodcastsWould a European-style regulatory system improve safety?Most PopularMost PopularMFantastical’s new calendar automatically keeps work appointments at workI hope every app adds support for Apple’s “Focus filters.” I’d love a future where I can split work and personal stuff between Focus Modes, rather than having to use different apps.Innovative to iOS, old hat to AndroidEWhat does it mean to have “brain fog?” Scientists are finally looking into it.Long COVID isn’t the only thing that can cause brain fog — other culprits include chemotherapy, hormone trouble, and multiple sclerosis —&nbsp;but it’s nice to see that people are starting to take it seriously.[The Atlantic]We have the technology to view TV from our wrists, but where is the feature?&nbsp;8Verge ScoreSix charging methods with a seventh in the worksAThe electrical grid has a lot of problems, but EV charging is not one of them — for now.The Union of Concerned Scientists says that the US electrical grid is up to the EV challenge, even in states like California with a lot of grid problems and a lot of EVs. The group even has high hopes for the future, as EVs grow more prevalent on the road. Utilities and grid operators will need to invest in more capacity and better transmission, though, if and when EVs become the dominant vehicle type on the road. [The Equation]Rabbids and Rainbows and Netflix, oh my.DI bet the 64GB iPhone 12 will be the most popular model this year.There’s a stating that demand for the iPhone 14 is less than demand for the 13 was last year during the first pre-order weekend. Given how little has changed with the 14, I’m tempted to say “duh” and that we shouldn’t really think about this gen’s performance until the 14 Plus is released, at the very least.But it also made me think that the 64GB iPhone 12 is going to be this year’s iPhone XR. It’s got what the people want: modern look, lots of colors, and the cheapest price on the shelf.

The Verge logo. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. In mid-2020, Friends . On January 1st, 2021, made a similar move, leaving Netflix to . The shows, whose moves cost a combined $1 billion roughly, were designed as anchors for the new streaming platforms: they would bring subscribers in and keep them subscribed. Neither WarnerMedia nor NBCUniversal has given hard insights into how much Friends or The Office have driven subscriptions or retention, but new data from research firm Antenna provides some interesting context about the latter show. Here are the...

Are The Office and Friends bets paying off for Peacock and HBO Max?

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