The peacock broke its inclusion in the Olympics. Now comes the hard part

After winning gold for its Paris Olympics, Peacock is now looking to become one of the must-have broadcast platforms. President Kelly Campbell shares what makes Peacock different, and the superpower strategy that drives success in the ever-changing streaming wars.

This is an abbreviated transcript of the interview Quick Responseowned by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Quick Response features direct interviews with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Quick Response wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

So are you still enjoying the Olympic glow?

The peacock is having a moment now. You know, you can feel that. Understandable, very exciting. I have people from all walks of life reaching out—from my teenage nieces and nephews to my parents and their friends, neighbors, former coworkers—and it’s fun. The Olympics played a big role, but we’ve had a good run over the last few years. The fastest growing streamer, originals of great output. So we knew it all along. But as you point out, you know, others catch on. So we’re going to have a little fun but always focus on what’s next.

Do you have any particularly memorable moments from Paris, like hanging out with Snoop and Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson or Alex Cooper?

There were a number of great moments. Snoop was definitely a hit. He did something unusual at a party to launch our NBA partnership. One of the highlights for me was the studio tour, seeing our bands in action, from Mike Tirico and Savannah. [Guthrie] and Hoda [Kotb] to our behind-the-scenes teams that make it all work. And then the studio was set up behind beach volleyball. So you have a view of beach volleyball and the Eiffel Tower, which was incredible.

That was a beautiful place. Amazing.

Oh, it was great. Yes, we have our work cut out with LA in ’28, and that’s where I’m based. There’s no shortage of beautiful places, but you won’t find the Eiffel Tower, you know, so yeah. But also the players. I mean, these athletes are amazing, so to stop for Team USA and talk to some of the athletes that are so inspiring was really cool. I was like a fan, you know, “Can I take a picture with you?” It’s really cool.

The challenge after great success is always maintaining momentum, isn’t it? How much do you expect from the Paralympics? Or now that the Premier Soccer League has started or the NFL season is coming up, is the focus even greater?

There are two. There are teams that are so focused on the Paralympics right now that they don’t get a break between the Olympics and the Paralympics. But we’re also very focused on what’s to come when you include our football coverage across the NFL, the Big 10, the Big East, Notre Dame, like we have a great program starting Thursday night for Kickoff Weekend. Then on Friday, we have an exclusive NFL game that will only be available at Peacock. This is Friday night’s game in Brazil.

But we get to use moments like that to present entertainment content as well. So Fight Night is a show that we’re really excited about that will come off of that momentum. We promoted it during the Olympics, so consumers and fans are starting to get excited about it. And then we will get to present from this time.

It’s like the peacock is ESPN’s version. Is ESPN somehow a competitive model or an opportunity?

Many more. Sports play a very important role. Sports is a great hook to bring people in, but even for live sports people who come in, like we call “our sports team” or “sports arena first”—people who come in and the first thing they watch is a live game. event. We usually see that nine out of ten of the following topics are entertainment topics.

So, sports play a strong role as a hook, but once we bring people in and we can reveal everything else that’s Peacock in our original series, we have a very expansive library. We have all the Universal movies right after the theaters. So sports play a big role as an anchor, but they are more than sports. It’s actually that mix of entertainment and sports content that makes Peacock unique in this market.

So it’s more like a Disney bundle with ESPN and Hulu and Disney+ together?

That’s a good way to think about it. It’s like people are starting to get it, you know? I don’t have to explain to everyone what a Peacock is. I would just say “Peacock.” It doesn’t have to be a disclaimer—”NBC Universal’s streaming service, a combination of next-day content from NBC and Bravo and library content.” It’s like people really get it.

Your background is from Silicon Valley. He worked at Google. So you are familiar with a little platform called YouTube. What do you think about YouTube in terms of live streaming competition? They’re not tied to a network, but they’re there, especially for a lot of viewers of the younger generation.

Yeah, look, it’s a different kind of content. So I think the reasons for turning on YouTube are different from the reasons you might turn on peacock or any streaming service. I mean, I look at them as competitors when it comes to time-sharing, which is a game we all play. When it comes to attracting the best creators and putting the best kind of premium content on the market, our competition sets itself apart.

Do you have an idea of ​​what the future of entertainment looks like and the future of broadcasting? Is there a clear place you’re trying to get to, or do you just have to adjust and practice continuously?

I mean it’s a bit of both. If you think about it, there will be a number of players that appear as must-have streaming services. We believe that Peacock is perfectly suited to be one of those. At the same time, the business is growing in a growth area, and things are happening very quickly. We have to go very quickly. Even using the Olympics as an example, we had several daily meetings throughout the Olympics—one of which was at midnight Paris time.

So it’s like no matter where you are, you made these meetings happen and we used those meetings to make real-time decisions. Fans wanted to see more Snoop—”Where can I get all the Snoop coverage?” So we’ve been able to pull together all of Snoop’s coverage, put it into a collection, and make it available so that the consumer can just click on the highlights from Snoop and watch that.

It’s like an example of, if you bring a peacock closer, the kind of noise we should have inside, because we have to move quickly. We have to make quick decisions. So I think that’s a big strength for Peacock: We have a leadership team made up of people who are such experts in what they do, but who come together every day to focus on these Peacock results. And there is a cadence or lightning fast pace. And now we’ve been at it long enough that we’ve kind of found that groove and I think we’re starting to see some real potential in terms of what’s possible.