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Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, reached profitability for the first time, boosted by FIFA World Cup, NBA playoffs and reality dating show “Love Island USA.”

The milestone comes as Comcast Corp. prepares to spin off NBCUniversal entertainment and news media businesses into a separate company. Peacock, which launched in 2020, grew its paid subscribers by 4% to 48 million in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter. The company said Peacock’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was $189 million.

“In just six years, we built Peacock into a streaming business with real scale in the U.S.,” said Brian Roberts, chairman and co-CEO of Comcast on Thursday in an earnings call, adding that Peacock has added 2 million paid subscribers in each of the last two quarters.

Co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said that performance “reinforces the value of NBC, Telemundo, Bravo, and Peacock together as one integrated media business with continued opportunity to drive stronger engagement, advertising, and profitability into the future.”

Comcast plans to spin off Peacock, NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, Bravo, Universal film, television studios and theme parks and British TV service Sky into its own separate company, with a goal of completing the separation in about a year.

Michael J. Wolf, CEO of Activate Consulting, said Peacock’s first profit proves that live sports and premium programming “remain the single most powerful anchors for consumer attention and subscriber growth.”

“As Comcast prepares to spin off NBCUniversal, freeing it from legacy cable, a standalone NBCU is now structurally positioned to compete at the highest level of streaming,” Wolf said in a statement.

Peacock was the last major premium subscription video-on-demand service launched by a legacy studio to reach profitability, said Brandon Katz, director of insights and content strategy at Greenlight Analytics. The streaming service is available only in the U.S. and certain U.S. territories. Its reach is much smaller than other rivals like Netflix, which has about 80 million households in the U.S. and Canada.

“It was a long and arduous process for Peacock to reach profitability, and this is obviously a very important step for their business, but one small step in a much larger journey,” Katz said.

The Peacock news was part of Comcast’s earnings results. Comcast said revenue declined 1% to $29.9 billion in the second quarter, compared to a year ago, hurt by the loss of broadband residential customers.

Net income was $3.5 billion, down 68% from a year ago, when its profit was boosted by a $9.4 billion gain from Comcast’s sale of its share in Hulu.

Content and experiences revenue increased 22.9% to $10.7 billion, thanks to increases in advertising and theatrical revenue from popular movies including “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” horror movie “Obsession” and the international distribution of “Michael.”

Comcast’s stock closed Thursday at $21.92 a share, down about 7%.

Netflix on Thursday reported higher revenues and profit in the second quarter as it sought to assure investors about its growth prospects.

The streaming giant reported revenue of $12.6 billion in the second quarter, up 13% from a year ago. Net income during the period rose 9% to $3.4 billion.

Netflix said it expects revenue to grow 12% in the third quarter, but lowered its 2026 revenue forecast to $51 billion from $51.4 billion.

The results were roughly in line with what analysts had predicted and were driven by recent price increase and growth in advertising revenue. The latter is expected to reach $3 billion this year, the company said.

In a presentation with analysts, Netflix executives touted global expansion plans.

“We’re entertaining an audience approaching a billion people with still lots of room to grow into our addressable market on every measure,” said Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s chief financial officer, in the earnings presentation. “We believe we’ve got lots and lots of runway for solid growth ahead of us.”

Those comments appeared intended to assuage investors who’ve grown concerned that people could be spending less time on the streaming service as rivals like YouTube gain market share.

Netflix’s share of TV viewing time in the U.S. has steadily declined in recent months as rivals have gained market share, according to Nielsen data.

The streamer represented 7.8% of all TV viewing in the U.S. in April — the lowest percentage since May 2025. It was 7.5% in April 2025, Nielsen said.

By comparison, YouTube has seen its share of the streaming audience grow. YouTube’s TV viewing share in April rose to 13.4%, up from 12.4% a year earlier, Nielsen said.

Some investors fear that if viewership is down, subscribers could cancel the service, which would negatively affect the platform’s growing advertising business. It could also undercut Netflix’s ability to raise prices in the U.S. and other countries.

Those worries have caused Netflix’s stock price to plummet 41% in the last year. The stock closed on Thursday at $74.35 a share, up 1%. In after hours trading, the stock fell 8%.

“The engagement elephant continues to rear its head and investors are on edge that an earlier price hike in a seasonally tough period and lighter content slate could have driven more churn than usual,” wrote Morgan Stanley Research analysts in a research note.

On Thursday, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders it has a sophisticated understanding of its consumers and “we know not all hours are equal” and that engagement on its platform is “healthy.”

“The entertainment industry remains dynamic and competitive,” Netflix told shareholders. “We aim to stay ahead by executing against our three areas of focus: delivering more entertainment value, leveraging technology to improve every aspect of our service, and improving monetization.”

The Los Gatos-based company said it plans to allocate more than 5% of its content spend on live programming this year. Live content has been a key driver for subscriptions, accounting for six of the top 10 new member sign-up days over the last five years, the company said.

In the first half of 2026, Netflix said members watched more than 97 billion hours, up 2% from a year ago. Among the most popular shows: the crime thriller “I Will Find You,” which had 87 million views; and the romantic comedy film “Voicemails for Isabelle,” which garnered 71 million views.

Netflix has been adding new types of content to its platform, including video podcasts to help increase engagement with subscribers during the day.

As part of the diversification efforts, the platform has expanded its portfolio of live programming over the years, including adding NFL games and streaming Major League Baseball’s opening day game.

In 2022, Netflix had also faced investor pressure when it reported declining subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. That pushed the company to delve into other areas including advertising, gaming and cracking down on password sharing.