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With the Olympics, Peacock Gets Second Chance at a First Impression

NBCUniversal is finally giving Peacock the launch it had initially planned, when the Tokyo Olympics light the torch on Friday after a year-long delay. NBCU executives are putting live coverage of popular events like track and field, gymnastics (which feature arguably the most popular American competing in Simone Biles) and men’s basketball in an effort to boost interest in its 1-year-old streaming service that has struggled so far to gain traction in a hyper-competitive market. Comcast said Peacock had 42 million signups by the end of the first quarter (it will report second quarter earnings next week). But since Peacock has both a free and a paid option, the actual number of people paying for the service — which includes the WWE Network and classic NBC series like “The Office” — isn’t as high. The Wall Street Journal reported in May that the service has only 10 million paying subscribers. (An even more recent Bloomberg report earlier this month said Peacock has about 14 million monthly users, with about 3 million of those paying for the service). But NBCUniversal executives remain publicly optimistic about the service’s launch. “We’re really happy, that’s the truth, and we know that the industry is...

Read original story With the Olympics, Peacock Gets Second Chance at a First Impression At TheWrap