Matt Strauss

Matt Strauss says Peacock was profitable in the third quarter, for the second quarter in a row. He shared the figure with results the company had reported the week of this conversation. EBITDA was $261 million, $470 million better than a year earlier. The service launched six years ago with a strategy he describes as different from the other streamers. He takes the profit as proof that there is more than one way to go to market, and he says the team has momentum to keep growing.

NBC Media Group is likely to be a separate company this time next year, as part of the new NBC. The spinoff is not closed, so some questions have to wait. From here, NBCUniversal will keep playing to its strengths.

Matt Strauss says NBCUniversal will launch a bundle next year that pairs the ad-supported tier of Peacock with a tier of YouTube Premium. Those subscribers get the benefits of YouTube Premium plus ad-supported Peacock. He expects most of them do not have Peacock today, so the bundle should grow Peacock and add value to YouTube Premium. A year from now, he predicts, Peacock will be one of the most widely distributed streaming services in the United States.

The bundle sits inside a great rebundling he says was discussed, and somewhat predicted, seven years ago. Sports held the old cable bundle together. A new bundle has to keep the wholesale price right, or a high-revenue direct subscriber ge

Matt Strauss says the decision to spin NBCUniversal off from Comcast was made by Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh. He was not in the room. People at NBCUniversal, in his telling, would say it makes strategic sense. He started at Comcast in 2004, working on cable boxes.

Nilay Patel describes Versant, which already took CNBC, MSNOW, and other cable channels, as feeling freer and disconnected from Comcast and NBCU. His framing of the next step is that Comcast keeps the cable business and NBCU becomes an entertainment company, with Strauss in charge of that company. People at NBCUniversal, Strauss says, show up with energy, believe in the strategy, and believe in the portfolio.

Matt Strauss says NBCUniversal spun some cable assets into Versant last year because the channels that stayed worked better together. As chairman of the NBCUniversal Media Group he oversees the broadcast network, Bravo, Peacock, NBC Sports, NBC News, and Telemundo.

Nilay Patel describes Versant as the company that took most of the former NBCU cable channels, including CNBC and MSNOW. The ownership stake in The Verge's parent company, which used to sit with NBCUniversal, now belongs to Versant. Strauss's point on the channels that remained is that they reinforce each other. NBC has been a megaphone for Peacock. As viewing fragmented, broadcast ratings kept growing, and that reach helped buil

Nilay Patel asks how NBCUniversal is handling pressure on NBC News from the Trump administration and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, including broadcast licenses and what a network is allowed to say. Matt Strauss says he has not had those direct conversations himself. A government affairs team works with regulators in DC.

He credits Cesar Conde and the NBC News organization as believers in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and says they are doing a fantastic job. News programming is on Peacock, on NBC, over the air, and on NBC News Now.

Peacock also carries the company's local stations, so a viewer in New York can watch Los Angeles or Philadelphia local news. Strauss says there is pro

Matt Strauss says YouTube TV has grown at a 26% to 27% compound annual growth rate over the past five years, while the pay TV ecosystem has declined at a 6% to 7% compound annual growth rate. YouTube TV is the fastest growing pay TV distributor, with over 10 million subscribers, and is likely to be the number one pay TV distributor in the next couple of years.

About 80% of Peacock subscribers are on the ad platform, and Peacock typically charges premium CPMs because it can super serve fandoms and franchises with its data. A YouTube relationship announced in summer adds a much deeper integration on data and with Freewheel, the programmatic advertising business. Peacock is almost indifferent

Matt Strauss says a Love Island clip on TikTok is a win for Peacock because it grows share of audience and opens the sales funnel. Somebody who sees the clip may have a higher propensity to tune in and watch the show on Peacock.

The Love Island marketing team clips the show onto TikTok. Peacock puts the content on almost every platform because the audiences are already there. The wrong bet is a closed ecosystem where everything has to happen on one platform. Viewers should be met where they are, and Peacock should still be the best place to experience the content. Love Island was the number one show for the summer and a bit of a phenomenon. Must-see TV and appointment TV still exist, even w

Matt Strauss says Peacock handles rising league demands by looking across the entire portfolio and ecosystem. Games run on both broadcast and streaming, which grows reach for the leagues and factors into how the leagues take their rights to market.

Sunday Night Football has been number one on NBC for 15 consecutive years, and the NFL is a longtime partner. The company also entered an 11-year arrangement with the NBA. The first year of the NBA relationship grew audience and shaped a weekly cadence of premium sports on Sundays with the NFL, the NBA, and now MLB. The mix also grew advertising. When the flywheel works, the company can partner with the leagues in creative ways. The same evaluati

Matt Strauss says Peacock was built from the start as an extension of the broadcast business, on the bet that streaming would look like television. 80% of Peacock subscribers are on the ad tier, which he thinks is a higher advertising mix than almost any other streaming service.

The wider market had chased ad-free binge viewing, scripted dramas, and gross subscribers at any cost. Peacock went toward live events, sports, movies, scripted series, unscripted shows, and news, expecting advertisers to follow the viewers. Decisions made six years ago put live at the center of the platform. An exclusive NFL playoff game, the Olympics, or the NBA tip-off can scale without pixelation, buffering, lon

Matt Strauss says putting every event live on Peacock did not pull viewers off NBC primetime. The daytime stream and the nighttime broadcast did different jobs, and the Winter Olympics still drew about 20 to 25 million viewers, a rating about 96 to 97 percent higher than Beijing.

There is no way to day-part 3,200 hours on one network. For the Paris Olympics, every event went live on Peacock, a decision long feared to cannibalize NBC primetime. Gold Zone and Multiview were built to surprise viewers and make the choices easy to find. People still tuned in to NBC at night because the broadcast leaned on storytelling, the backstory of the athletes, and how Mike Tirico framed the day. Put togeth

Matt Strauss says about 20% of television households in the country still use over-the-air antennas. Picture quality is excellent at the right look angle to pick up the signal.

Growing broadcast ratings does not mean more people are putting antennas up. NBCUniversal still builds live sports around broad reach: the NFL, the NBA, MLB, the Big Ten, the Premier League, and the Olympics with the IOC. In 2026, almost every sport in that lineup has continued to grow ratings and reach new audiences. Peacock carries sports too, and games are not reserved only for the streaming service. Broadcast and streaming are managed as one portfolio, not as two businesses sitting next to each other.

Matt Strauss says moving viewers back and forth across the portfolio is a critical part of continued growth: 40% of Love Island viewers also tuned in to watch the World Cup. Love Island was the number one streaming show of the summer.

One programming team, one marketing team, one product and technology team, one decision sciences and research team, and one advertising team were put in place about 18 months ago, all incentivized to grow the portfolio, get maximum reach and maximum engagement, and drive top line revenue. He thinks the structure is contributing to a lot of the success showing up now. In 2026, NBC is the number one network in total viewers. Legendary February brought the Super

Chris’ father. Everyone else seems to be protecting Chris.

From the address he's given, he sees a guy that’s walking out on the balcony, then walking back in. He looks to be in his late 20s with black or dark brown hair. He is said to be around Chris’ height.

The only suspicious person that Strauss has spoken to is her ex-boyfriend, whom we are calling Ivan to keep his identity private. He is said to have been in Europe during the time of Adea’s disappearance.