Peacock Kids

Peacock is an American over-the-top subscription streaming service owned and operated by Comcast through its entertainment division NBCUniversal.

Launched on July 15, 2020, the service primarily carries television shows and films from NBCUniversal brands and other third-party content providers, as well as original series, films, and specials. It is the main streaming outlet of the NBC Sports and Telemundo Deportes divisions, carrying simulcasts of specified events with NBC and Spanish sister network Telemundo, as well as sports broadcasts and supplemental coverage not carried on linear television. It also carries WWE professional wrestling content, including archive programming and live pay-per-view events.

Peacock was initially offered in free, "Premium", and "Premium Plus" plans, with the free version offering a limited selection of content, and Premium Plus offering ad-free video on-demand content and streaming of NBC affiliates; since January 2023, the free tier is no longer available as an option to new customers unless their subscription lapses. As of January 2025, Peacock had 41 million paid subscribers.

History

On January 14, 2019, NBCUniversal announced plans to launch an over-the-top streaming service in 2020, which would feature original and library content, and be available in free advertising-supported and paid ad-free versions. The service would be led by chairman Bonnie Hammer, under the division NBCUniversal Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises.

On September 17, 2019, it was announced that the service would be named "Peacock", an allusion to the NBC logo. The service announced further details on its initial slate of original programming, including sci-fi series ''Brave New World'' (moved from USA Network's slate), limited series ''Angelyne,'' crime drama '' Dr. Death'', comedy ''Rutherford Falls'', teen drama ''One of Us Is Lying'', talk show ''The Amber Ruffin Show'', and reboots and continuations of ''Battlestar Galactica'', ''Punky Brewster'', and ''Saved by the Bell.'' It was also announced that library rights to the NBC sitcoms ''The Office'' and '' Parks and Recreation'' would move exclusively to Peacock in October 2020 and January 2021, respectively.

Peacock soft launched for Comcast Xfinity cable subscribers on April 15, 2020, beginning with X1 and Xfinity Flex customers. The service then launched nationally on July 15 of that year.

As of August 2021, the service had reached at least 54 million signups. In April 2022, the service reached 28 million monthly active accounts and 13 million paid subscribers, an increase of 40% from the previous quarter. It also reported a 25% increase in engagement year-over-year. In September 2022, the service had 30 million monthly active accounts and 15 million paid subscribers, a 70% increase in paid subscribers since the start of 2022. As of December 2022, the service had reached 20 million paid subscribers, with its coverage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Spanish having been credited for an increase in the fourth quarter of 2022.

In January 2024, Peacock added 3 million new subscribers due to its exclusive National Football League Wild Card broadcast, and achieved the most-streamed event in U.S. history, with an average of 23 million viewers. In April 2024, WrestleMania XL became Peacock's most-streamed entertainment event, with the service reporting its second-highest usage behind the exclusive NFL broadcast. In August 2024, Peacock similarly added 2.8 million subscribers during the first week of the 2024 Summer Olympics. A Comcast filing stated that Peacock had 33 million paid subscribers prior to the Olympics. On May 24, 2024, Comcast, Netflix, Inc., and Apple Inc. announced a streaming bundle with Apple TV+, Netflix, and Peacock, which is known as Xfinity StreamSaver, to compete with the Disney+, Hulu, Max bundle.

Distribution

Peacock has three tiers of service: Free, Premium, and Premium Plus. The Premium tiers are subscription-based and include Peacock's full library of content, while the Free tier contains a subset of its content. The Free and Premium tiers are advertising-supported, with commercials limited to five minutes per hour. Peacock Premium is included in some services from television service providers, such as Cox, which ended January 15, 2023, and Xfinity. Subscribers to Peacock Premium, whether subscribing directly or receiving service through a provider, can upgrade to the ad-free Premium Plus tier for an additional monthly cost. In January 2023, NBCUniversal discontinued the Free tier for new users: only subscription-based plans are available, with the Free plan only available to existing users, and those whose Premium subscription has lapsed.

On May 6, 2020, a distribution deal with Apple made Peacock available on iOS devices and Apple TV on-launch. Peacock content is also available on the Apple TV app, and the Premium service is available as an in-app subscription. On July 20, 2020, Peacock launched an app for PlayStation 4. On September 21 of that year, Peacock became available on Roku. The company's September 18 agreement for the service narrowly averted a blackout of NBCUniversal's TV Everywhere apps on Roku devices due to a dispute over revenue sharing and advertising inventory assignment. On June 8, 2021, Peacock launched an app for Samsung smart TVs. On June 24, 2021, Peacock launched an app for Amazon Fire TV and Amazon Fire tablets, such as Fire HD.

In April 2023, as part of its multi-year partnership with Meta Platforms, a Peacock app was launched for Meta Quest virtual reality headsets. In November 2023, grocery delivery service Instacart announced an agreement to offer Peacock to subscribers of its Instacart+ service.

Content

The service is drawn primarily from the NBCUniversal library, including subsidiaries such as Universal Pictures and Universal Television. It is said to include at least 15,000 hours of content on-launch without a subscription, and an additional 5,000 hours of content for Premium subscribers. Current episodes of NBC series are available on Peacock the day after their premiere for Premium subscribers; non-subscribers will receive them on a week's delay.

Peacock also offers a lineup of about 25 curated digital linear channels, including long-form and digital-originated programming content from NBCUniversal's broadcast and cable properties (such as ''Today All Day'', a digital extension of NBC's morning show ''Today''), as well as third-party content providers. They are designed to emulate a traditional broadcast programming experience (similar to services such as Pluto TV and Xumo, the latter of which was purchased by NBCUniversal parent Comcast in February 2020).

On January 26, 2020, NBC announced plans to stream ''The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'' and ''Late Night with Seth Meyers'' at 8 and 9 p.m. ET, respectively, ahead of their television premieres on NBC. Many of NBC's affiliate groups criticized the decision out of concern that the "pre-airs" of both late-night talk shows on Peacock would cannibalize viewership for the shows on local NBC stations, and the plans never came to fruition.

On July 6, 2021, Universal announced that it would not renew its pay-one output deal with HBO in favor of bringing its films to Peacock during the pay-one window beginning in 2022. All films will exclusively be available on Peacock during the first and last four months of the 18-month pay-one window (with Universal licensing its live-action films to Amazon Prime Video and its animated films from Illumination and DreamWorks Animation to Netflix in between those two exclusivity windows). The pay-one window for Universal films was initially brought forward to four months after a film's initial theatrical release with this move, but it was later announced on December 9, 2021, that the pay-one window would be brought forward to as little as 45 days after a film's initial theatrical release (though Universal's deals with theater chains regarding the premium video on demand window for these films would be unaffected by this move).

In January 2022, NBC's Spanish-language sister network Telemundo announced TPlus, a new "content hub" for Spanish-language programming on Peacock Premium that will launch later in the same year to coincide with the FIFA World Cup.

In May 2022, Universal Pictures announced that it would shift three of its films to Peacock in 2023: '' Shooting Stars'', a biographical feature about LeBron James based on his memoir; '' Praise This'', about a youth choir music competition; and a remake of John Woo's 1989 crime drama '' The Killer''.

In August 2022, NBC announced that its long-running soap opera ''Days of Our Lives'' would move exclusively to Peacock Premium beginning September 12 of that year, after a 57-year run on NBC. The miniseries spin-off '' Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem'' had previously premiered as a Peacock original series. It also announced that next-day streaming of Bravo programs would move to Peacock for the upcoming television season, as NBCUniversal had invoked its option to end an agreement with Hulu for next-day streaming rights for NBC and Bravo programming.

On November 30, 2022, live streaming of local NBC stations was added for Premium Plus subscribers. This function was available at launch in 210 markets.

Programming

Original programming

Third-party content

Lionsgate licenses library content to Peacock which Comcast negotiated during renewal of its carriage of Starz. In turn, NBCUniversal would license content to StarzPlay in the United States and internationally. On January 16, 2020, Peacock acquired the streaming rights to the Warner Bros. Television series ''Two and a Half Men'' and ''George Lopez'', the Paramount Network series ''Yellowstone'', as well as ''The Matrix'' films. In February 2020, A&E Networks licensed some titles from the A&E and History libraries to Peacock. Peacock also had rights to the ''Harry Potter'' film series as part of an existing deal with NBCUniversal networks from October 2020 until August 2021, before WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros. Discovery) took them back on September 1 of that year. The films were then placed on HBO Max.

On July 1, 2020, ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) non-exclusively licensed some of its television series and films to Peacock, such as ''Everybody Hates Chris'', ''Ray Donovan'', and ''Undercover Boss''. The service also held rights to several Paramount Pictures films under a limited exclusivity window from 2021 to 2023.

On July 14, 2020, the service acquired the Canadian drama '' Departure'' for a U.S. premiere.

On July 17, 2020, Cinedigm licensed over a dozen films and three streaming channels for Peacock's launch, with hundreds of other films and television episodes to follow.

In January 2021, Peacock added Claudia Rosencrantz and Adrian Woolfe's streaming entertainment news channel LIT, with the platform serving as its U.S. launch partner for an exclusivity period.

On May 18, 2021, NBCUniversal announced that it had acquired the U.S. streaming rights to the Eurovision Song Contest for Peacock under a two-year deal, beginning with the 2021 edition (whose first semifinal was held later that day). The agreement came shortly after NBC reached an agreement with the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the event, to produce an U.S. music competition series based on the Eurovision format. For 2022, NBC's lead figure skating analyst, Johnny Weir, was added as a commentator for its Eurovision broadcasts. The streaming rights for the contest were renewed for 2023.

On June 10, 2021, Peacock added content from anime streaming service RetroCrush.

On October 31, 2022, NBCUniversal announced an SVOD agreement with Hallmark Media, under which Peacock Premium would add a hub featuring content from Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama. The agreement includes both on-demand content from Hallmark's library of original series and made-for-TV movies, and the live, linear feeds of all three networks. A similar agreement with Reelz (including true crime programming such as '' On Patrol: Live'') was announced on February 28, 2023. However, due to conflicts with Peacock's exclusivity agreement with WWE, the linear Reelz channel would be blacked out on Peacock when it carries '' MLW Underground Wrestling''. The Hallmark agreement was not renewed, and expired at the end of April 2025 in favor of Hallmark Media's own streaming service Hallmark+.

On April 13, 2023, Peacock added films from Magnolia Pictures.

WWE content

On January 25, 2021, NBCUniversal, which already televised WWE's professional wrestling weekly programs '' Raw'' and '' NXT'' on USA Network, acquired the exclusive U.S. distribution rights to the WWE Network streaming service beginning March 18, 2021. WWE content is carried within a branded channel on Peacock, which includes a selection of WWE content on Peacock's free tier. Premium subscribers have access to the full WWE library, including WWE Network original programming, archive content and all premium live events (pay-per-views) live and on-demand. Some WWE content on Peacock has been edited to meet NBCUniversal standards and practices, particularly to remove content considered inappropriate under current standards. The standalone WWE Network service for existing U.S. subscribers was shut down on April 4, 2021.

In May 2021, Peacock announced that it had ordered ''WWE Evil'', a documentary series created, produced, and narrated by John Cena that chronicles WWE's most prominent antagonists

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