Anthony Wood
David Orrell | CNBC
Shares of Roku jumped more than 16% Monday, hitting a new 52-week high, after NBCUniversal’s Peacock launched on the streaming platform. It’s the rare bright spot on an otherwise down day for the market — as of late morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is off more than 3% for the day.
Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company, and Roku had been in talks for months to get the service streaming on Roku, but disagreed over control of user data and sharing of advertising inventory. Peacock launched in July but was missing on two of the most-used platforms: Amazon Fire TV and Roku.
Comcast ramped up pressure on Friday and threatened to pull NBC’s TV Everywhere channels from Roku while negotiations continued. The companies agreed to a deal that same day.
“Two primary benefits to Roku include top-end premium inventory and subsequent pricing leverage on its CTV premium ad bundles, and leverage with other major media networks/carriage agreements including present discussions with AT&T/WarnerMedia for HBO Max premium and ad-supported subscription carriage/revenue share,” Rosenblatt Securities analyst Mark Zgutowicz said in a note Monday. The firm reiterated its Buy rating on the stock.
Roku is at a standstill with AT&T over WarnerMedia’s HBO Max service. Peacock is still unavailable on Amazon Fire TV.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of both Peacock and CNBC.
