NBCUniversal's Matt Strauss on Peacock, Fandoms & the Future of Streaming | Cannes Lions 2026

From LA Times Studios | Matt Strauss, Chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, sits down at Cannes Lions 2026 to discuss how a 100-year-old company stays culturally relevant—and how Peacock built a profitable streaming business by zagging while the rest of the market zigged. From radio to broadcast to cable to streaming, Strauss explains why disruption is core to NBCUniversal's DNA, why he sees linear and streaming as "two sides of the same coin," and how an ad-supported, live-and-on-demand strategy turned Peacock into a 46M+ subscriber service on the path to profitability. In this conversation, he covers: 00:00 — Introduction: Matt Strauss, NBCUniversal 00:18 — 100 years of NBC and a history of disruption 01:19 — Linear and streaming as "two sides of the same coin" 02:10 — Solving the paradox of choice through aggregation 02:37 — Building a profitable streaming business by playing to your strengths 04:40 — Peacock by the numbers: 46M+ subscribers and Q2 profitability 05:43 — How fandoms create value for advertisers 07:42 — What makes content culturally relevant vs. a passing fad 09:44 — How AI enhances personalization and storytelling 12:52 — AI as a tool, not a replacement: the Bravo & Andy Cohen avatar 15:51 — The future of contextual, AI-powered advertising 18:05 — Innovating around consumer needs, not chasing trends 20:28 — Turning Love Island into the ultimate fan destination 23:49 — Why he's optimistic about the future of media A recurring theme: NBCUniversal is "creative first," using AI to augment storytelling—scanning the Bravo library, creating personalized Olympic playlists narrated by an AI avatar of Al Michaels—rather than replace the human ingenuity that makes content great.