Everything You Need To Know About Peacock Streaming Service

Early in April with it’s limited launch to the selected Comcast customers, finally, Peacock Streaming Service has been officially launched by NBCUniversal on July 15th. Apart from the streaming market, another big player that has joined the OTT arena in the USA – The major trendsetter market since the rise of Netflix in the early 90s. As we already have seen the launch of Disney+ and Apple+ in the recent past, so now the streaming war is on its peak which is already invaded by Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney plus, Apple tv plus, Amazon prime and the entry of Peacock is a bit delayed in the crowded market of more than two dozen streaming services in the USA air, surely it’s going to have a big challenge to break through to customers.

Well, Peacock Streaming Service is a completely free, ad-supported tier that will offer thousands of hours of content to customers. So, first of all, you do not have to worry for the next few months about the subscription charges if you are comfortable watching your movies and web series with the ad interruption.

So, it will make a sense to hundreds and thousands of viewers to know what’s there in Peacock’s offer? Let’s check what NBCU has with its new feather.

• Know more on live streaming services in 2020

The platform and interface

During the investor unveiling of Peacock, NBCUniversal executives described the streaming service as “like a broadcast network.” That may sound odd for a streaming platform, but considering the amount of live content, the characterization makes some sense.

At launch, the service will offer a mix of exclusive shows, on-demand classics, and live content. The premiere live event at launch was supposed to have been the 2020 Olympics coverage, but with the postponement of the games until 2021, those plans have changed.

When subscribers open the app, they can search in two sections: Channels and Browse. In the Channels section, video plays automatically in the background — much like the current channel plays when you search the TV guide with a cable subscription — while subscribers scroll through a list of live and themed “virtual channels.” They can select from various TV shows, as well as current news, sports, and curated movie hubs.

• For Xfinity customers, the Channels section blends the aforementioned programming with cable content.

Cost of Peacock Streaming Service

There are three types of plans in the Peacock Tv, each plan determines what content you’ll get and how many ads you’ll see.

Base Plan: The good news is, the base plan of Peacock is a completely free, ad-supported, but it is the more limited version of the service. The ad-supported version that will include about 7,500 hours of programming. This tier includes full runs of older series, movies, daily news, and sports programming (including the Olympics); Spanish-language content; and samples of select Peacock original programming. It will also include access to curated genre channels like SNL Vault, Family Movie Night, and Olympic Profiles. Content at this tier will not be available in 4K/HDR, though.

Peacock Premium Tier: The other is Peacock Premium tier plan, a $4.99-per-month subscription that includes more than double the content of the base plan, makes the entire library of Peacock content available to subscribers in an ad-supported model. It is available to Comcast Xfinity TV and broadband subscribers (via Flex) as well as Cox Communications’ video customers for no additional charge.

Peacock’s exclusive original shows, next-day episodes of current NBC series, and more live programming, including Premier League soccer and early access to NBC late-night show and full access to Peacock Original Series. In addition, a larger library of new, classic, and licensed content (approximately 15,000 hours total). All versions of the Premium tier will stream content in 4K/HDR. But while it’ll offer much more content, it’ll still have ads.

Premium Ad-Free Plan: Unless, of course, you shell out for the $9.99 version of Peacock, Premium Ad-Free, which offers the same content as Peacock Premium but without ads. But even the Ad-Free plan isn’t totally ad-free: the company warns that “due to streaming rights, a small amount of programming — Peacock channels, events, and a few shows and movies — will still contain ads.”

Both paid plans also offer annual subscriptions, at discounted rates of $49.99 per year for Premium and $99.99 per year for Premium Ad-Free.

The content is king

The competition for exclusive content among streaming services has been fierce, and NBCUniversal confirmed quite a few high-profile projects for Peacock. At launch, Peacock offers a wide range of movies and series, as well as live and on-demand news, sports, late-night, and reality content.

In many cases, Peacock Free offers a selection of episodes from popular series, while the full run of the series is available to Peacock Premium and Premium Plus subscribers.

Late-night content on Peacock Streaming Service

Peacock Premium and Premium Plus feature live late-night content and will debut a new family-friendly late-night show from Jimmy Fallon. At the investor unveiling, it was also revealed that early late night will also be available on Peacock, as new episodes of NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers will be available on Peacock Premium at 8 p.m. ET every night.

Combo of classic and current TV

It seems the NBC Universal content team had a good brainstorming to select the content. They have prepared a perfect blend of classic and current TV shows.

The following shows have full seasons — and in some cases, complete series — available on Peacock:

• The Office
• 30 Rock
• Parks and Recreation
• Yellowstone
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Cheers
• Downton Abbey
• Everybody Loves Raymond
• Friday Night Lights
• Frasier
• Will & Grace
• The King of Queens
• House
• Keeping Up with the Kardashians

All 44 seasons of Saturday Night Live are available on Peacock Premium at launch, with the current and subsequent seasons also available after the season ends on NBC. Not all of the shows listed above are available on the service at launch, however. For example, Peacock won’t be acquiring streaming rights to The Office from Netflix until 2021.

Peacock Premium and Premium Plus users are also able to stream new episodes of NBC and Telemundo content like This Is Us, Superstore, Law and Order: SVU, Operación Pacífico, and World of Dance the day after they air. Most previously aired current season episodes will also be available.

Classic movies on Peacock Tv

Peacock will offer more than 600 films in its first year after launch, drawing from the libraries of Universal, DreamWorks, and Illumination.

New (and newish) shows

NBCUniversal has plans to bring reboots or revivals of several popular series to Peacock, often with ties to existing older shows and films available on the service or through one of the company’s broadcast networks or film studios.

The current list of series orders includes:

• The Amber Ruffin Show, a weekly late-night talk show starring Amber Ruffin and executive produced by Seth Meyers
• Angelyne, a limited series based on The Hollywood Reporter feature that explored the identity of LA’s mysterious billboard bombshell, starring Emmy Rossum
• The third season of sitcom A.P. Bio
• Armas de Mujer, a dramedy from the creators of Telemundo’s La Reina del Sur
• A new series within Battlestar Galactica mythology from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail
• Brave New World, an adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel, starring Demi Moore and Alden Ehrenreich
• The Capture, a conspiracy thriller that includes themes of misinformation and surveillance
• Code 404, a drama about a police officer who is brought back from death by an experimental A.I. project
• Dr. Death, a drama starring Alec Baldwin, Jamie Dornan, and Christian Slater
• Five Bedrooms, a comedy that brings together unexpected allies who take risks to find an interesting solution
• Girls 5Eva, a comedy from Tina Fey
• Hitmen, a comedy about two broke BFFs who only have each other
• Intelligence, a workplace sitcom set in the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters, starring David Schwimmer
• Lady Parts, a musical comedy following a Muslim female punk band called Lady Parts
• A reboot of the Punky Brewster sitcom
• Rutherford Falls, a comedy series from Mike Schur (The Good Place, Parks and Recreation), starring Ed Helms
• A revival and pseudo-reboot of Saved By the Bell that already has some of the original series’s cast members attached
• Who Wrote That, a documentary series from Lorne Michaels exploring some of the most memorable Saturday Night Live sketches

Some of the new projects currently in development for Peacock include the following:

• Clean Slate, a comedy from Norman Lear, starring Laverne Cox
• Division One, a comedy from Amy Poehler
• Expecting, a comedy from Mindy Kaling
• Hatching Twitter, a docuseries from New York Times bestselling author and Vanity Fair special correspondent Nick Bilton
• A Queer as Folk reboot from writer, director, and executive producer Stephen Dunn
• A series adaptation of Will Forte’s MacGruber film
• A reboot (or spinoff/revival) of The Office
• Straight Talk, a psychological drama starring Jada Pinkett Smith, with Rashida Jones executive producing and directing the pilot
• The Adventure Zone, based on the McElroy Family’s wildly popular Dungeons & Dragons
• A new spinoff of The Real Housewives series

New movies

Among the films currently available in Peacock’s library are a few original movies, including Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, a sequel to Psych: The Movie, based on the series of the same name. Peacock also has a deal with NBCUniversal’s DreamWorks Animation to produce original animated features for the streaming service. As per the latest news, beginning 2022, all new released movies from the Universal Pictures will stream on Peacock within four months after they open in theaters. This accelerates what’s traditionally referred to as the pay-one home entertainment window. The move hopes to grow the streamer’s subscriber base, alongside a plan to make original movies for Peacock.

Important FAQ about Peacock TV

Does Peacock still be free for Xfinity customers?

Astute readers will note that NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast, which also provides Xfinity internet and TV services. Xfinity customers have already had access to an early version of the service for weeks. The company will be continuing to leverage that corporate synergy as a key part of Peacock’s launch, offering free access to the Peacock Premium service to Xfinity Internet or Digital Starter TV customers. Plus, Xfinity customers will be able to upgrade their free Peacock Premium plan to Premium Ad-Free by paying $4.99 per month.

Cox subscribers will also be able to leverage that deal, with access to free Peacock Premium. NBCUniversal is working on enabling similar deals with other cable and internet providers in the future, with the goal of offering free service to as many customers as possible.