Peacock Productions was a long-form production unit of

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's v ...

. The division, established on July 15, 2007, primarily produced one-off factual programs and specials, airing across both

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...

and third-party networks. Peacock served as an

incubator An incubator is anything that performs or facilitates various forms of incubation, and may refer to: Biology and medicine * Incubator (culture), a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures * Incubator (egg), a de ...

for new production technologies that have later been adopted by NBC News, such as

tapeless In the field of professional broadcasting, an end-to-end workflow (from ingest to playout) is called ''tapeless'' when part, or all of it, is made without any use of audio tape recorders or videotape machines; video and audio sources being inges ...

recording. The studio was shut down on March 2, 2020, with NBC News citing changes to its strategies on documentaries.

History

Peacock was established on July 15, 2007 by the merger of NBC News Productions, NBC Media Productions, & the digital unit NBC Next Media, along with the staff of NBC's

newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

Dateline A dateline is a brief piece of text included in news articles that describes where and when the story was written or filed, though the date is often omitted. In the case of articles reprinted from wire services, the distributing organization i ...

''. The merger came in response to the growing popularity of non-fiction programming on television (with a particular emphasis on cable channels and digital outlets), and in the wake of a recent series of budget cuts at NBC Universal that affected NBC News's long-form production units In May 2012, ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' senior producer Marc Victor stepped down and joined Peacock to lead a new unit, Tomorrow Productions — which would leverage the resources and talent of ''Today''. In 2013, Peacock produced ''

Skywire Live ''Skywire Live with Nik Wallenda'' is a Discovery Channel special that aired on June 23, 2013. The special was billed as a Tightrope walking, highwire walk across "the majestic Grand Canyon". Interpretations varied as to whether the actual loc ...

'' for

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Chan ...

, a live special that featured

Nik Wallenda Nikolas Wallenda (born January 24, 1979) is an American acrobat, aerialist, daredevil, high wire artist, and author. He is known for his high-wire performances without a safety net. He holds 11 Guinness World Records for various acrobatic feat ...

's crossing of the

Little Colorado River The Little Colorado River () is a tributary of the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona, providing the principal drainage from the Painted Desert region. Together with its major tributary, the Puerco River, it drains an area of about i ...

gorge near

Grand Canyon National Park Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often conside ...

. The studio shut down on March 2, 2020, with NBC News stating that it was "shifting its documentary strategy to an entirely new model, consistent with industry trends". An employee reported that streaming video had reduced the demand for the type of low-cost documentaries traditionally made by Peacock.

Television

References

{{Authority control NBC News Television production companies of the United States 2007 establishments in New York City Mass media companies disestablished in 2020