NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service has launched nationally, adding another entry to an already-crowded streaming market.
The service became available to some Comcast subscribers in April and is now available on Apple TV and iOS devices. Peacock offers both a free and a paid premium tier of service.
Peacock’s free tier features more than 13,000 hours of programming. The Peacock Premium paid tier is available for $4.99 per month and features more than 20,000 hours of content. Both tiers include commercials, but the premium tier offers fewer ads. Viewers may also upgrade Peacock Premium to ad-free for an additional $5.00 per month.
Plenty of “classic” television episodes are available, including popular series “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” which will appear exclusively on the service, as well as “30 Rock,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Cheers,” “Frasier,” “House,” “Monk,” “Saturday Night Live,” and numerous other NBC broadcast or produced shows.
Peacock will also offer original programming, including dramas “Dr. Death,” “Brave New World,” and “One of Us Is Lying,” and yet another reboot of “Battlestar Galactica.” Comedy originals will include reboots of “Saved by the Bell,” and “Punky Brewster,” as well as originals “Rutherford Falls” and “Straight Talk.” However, as mentioned above, production on original offerings has been temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Original movies will also stream on the new services, as well as film classics like “Casino,” “Jaws,” “E.T,” and many others. 3,000+ hours of Telemundo Spanish-language content will also be available. Peacock is also set to include live sports access, curated shorts, breaking news coverage, and more.
The Apple TV is one of the few available set-top boxes to offer the Peacock service at its premiere, as like HBO Max, Peacock is not available on Amazon Fire TV or Roku.
A report from CNBC says NBCUniversal is holding the service back from Amazon’s Prime service as it does not want Peacock to be included in Amazon Channels where Amazon would wet its beak by taking a cut of new subscriptions.
Roku and NBCUniversal were reportedly unable to agree on how much of Peacock’s ad inventory could be sold by Roku.
The Peacock app is free and is available in the App Store for both iOS and Apple TV devices. [GET IT HERE]