Decoder with Nilay Patel · Nov 2, 2026 · 1h 7m · 61m saved
With Matt Strauss, Chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group
Photo via nbcuniversal.com
NBC's "Legendary February" reached more than 225 million viewers in 17 days, across the Super Bowl, the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game. Matt Strauss, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, told Nilay Patel on Decoder that the internal fear going into that stretch was that streaming every event live on Peacock would cannibalize NBC's own primetime audience. It did the opposite.
"In 17 days, we reached over 225 million viewers" — Matt Strauss
Matt now runs one unified programming, marketing, product and ad-sales organization across NBC, Bravo, Peacock, NBC Sports, NBC News and Telemundo, put in place about 18 months ago ahead of Comcast's planned spinoff of NBCUniversal into a standalone company next year.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 67 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 5 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
NBC was the most-watched network of 2026 by total viewers, Matt says
"Legendary February" drew over 225 million viewers across the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the NBA All-Star Game
Streaming the Olympics live doubled Peacock's digital minutes and ad revenue, instead of hurting NBC
The Milan Cortina ratings ran 96%-97% higher than Beijing's
80% of Peacock's subscribers are on its ad-supported tier, a higher mix than almost any rival
Sports and streaming now make up about 60% of NBCUniversal's ad revenue, up from 30% six years ago
A Peacock-YouTube Premium bundle launches next year, which Matt expects to be mostly incremental subscribers
He predicts Peacock becomes "one of the top distributed streaming services in the United States" within a year
NBCUniversal is reformatting shows like Saturday Night Live into vertical video to capture viewing it says is leaking to other platforms
1. One Job Ahead of the Spinoff
Nilay opened on how Matt's role changed. Matt described a structural shift from separate broadcast and streaming programming teams to one organization covering every NBCUniversal platform.
Matt now runs one programming, marketing, product and ad-sales team across all of NBCUniversal's networks
"NBC has been like a megaphone... As things have gotten more fragmented, having a broadcast network is actually a superpower because we're continuing to see ratings growth." — Matt Strauss
The change, which he calls "content first, platform second," went into place about 18 months ago, ahead of Comcast's planned full spinoff of NBCUniversal into a standalone company next year, following last year's Versant spinoff of CNBC, MS Now and other cable channels.
