The Office, which was the top show on a streaming service with more than 73 million U.S. subscribers until New Year’s Day, is now even more popular on a platform with only around 26 million active users.
That’s Reelgood’s story, and it’s sticking with it.
The company, which specializes in directing viewers to the shows they want to stream, said that nearly 10% of the streams delivered for a cohort of 2 million-plus users on the week of Jan. 1-7 went to The Office on Peacock. The show premiered exclusively on Peacock Jan. 1.
According to Nielsen, The Office was Netflix’s most watched show for the week of Dec. 14-20, with all 192 episodes attracting around 1.311 billion minutes of viewing on the No. 1 U.S. SVOD platform.
Also read: Is 'The Office' Now Driving Peacock's Business Model?
But according to Reelgood, for that week, The Office only accounted for less than 3% of the cohort’s Reelgood-arbitrated streams that week.
Despite the popularity on The Office on its platform, Netflix didn’t exactly go out of its way to surface the show in the waning weeks before it bolted to a competitor. NBCU, which paid more than $100 million pocket-to-pocket for exclusive domestic streaming rights, has made The Office a key component of Peacock promotion.
But still … the discrepancy seems hard to fathom.
"The continued popularity of The Office says more about the content than the service that's streaming it," observes Dietrich von Behren, Reelgood's chief business officer for Reelgood. "People will follow the programs they love and also subscribe to an additional service for new must-see shows. By offering the first few seasons of The Office on their free tier, Peacock was very strategic—creating excitement by enticing existing fans and newbies alike, which surely helped promote their debut and drive new subscribers."
