What is a Peacock TV?
Peacock TV is a video streaming service from NBCUniversal. It has both free tier and paid subscription tiers, and contains content from classic NBC movies like Saturday Night Live and Law & Order, in addition to a lot of original content.
Reboots of popular TV series such as Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster are not yet expected to be available and will be part of Peacock’s “original content”. In total, more than 15,000 hours of content will be available on Peacock TV.
You might be wondering why NBCUniversal named him the Peacock. It is a tribute to the classic peacock logo designed in the early days of NBC television broadcasting.
With streaming now considered the “next frontier” for many traditional TV content producers, it makes sense that NBC would like to keep this iconic branding tied to the project while creating some differentiation between the traditional broadcast network and the new streaming service.
How can I get a Peacock TV?
Following a soft launch in April 2020 that was only available to Comcast and Xfinity customers, Peacock was released to the public on July 15, 2020.
Peacock TV Pricing
NBCUniversal offers both free streaming and subscription-level streaming for Peacock. When you subscribe to a streaming service, you will have a choice of three subscription levels:
Peacock TV free
Peacock Free is a free service that includes access to live advertisements and 13,000 hours of on-demand content. No credit card required. All you need is an email address and a password to register. This is a bold proposal, targeting commercial advertising as the main source of income.
Peacock TV Premium
Peacock Premium offers a monthly ($ 4.99) and an annual ($ 49.99) rate. Select Xfinity and Comcast customers receive this subscription tier for free. This price level includes a small amount of advertising. In my experience, it was just a 5-second mini-commercial at the beginning of the TV series. The premium option will give users access to over 20,000 hours of content, including all original Peacock content, as well as access to live sports such as the English Premier League.
Peacock TV Premium Ad Free
Peacock Premium Ad-Free is the highest subscription level for the service. For $ 9.99 / month or $ 99.99 / year, you get all the Peacock Premium benefits without annoying ads. If you are already getting a free Premium service, you can upgrade to it without paying the full price. According to NBC, “premium customers can upgrade to the ad-free mode for an additional $ 5 per month, or any customer can purchase ad-free directly for $ 9.99 per month.”
Discounts and free trials
If you’re hoping to try the premium version of Peacock and are not a Comcast customer, the service offers a 7-day free trial.
As part of the presale sale, NBCUniversal is offering a 40% discount on its annual subscription. This lowered the cost of Premium from $ 49.99 to $ 29.99 and Premium Ad-Free from $ 99.99 to $ 79.99. These deals expired on July 14, 2020, but they could serve as a consumer barometer for future discounts.
Devices
You can access Peacock TV content from the following devices:
- Xfinity Flex
- Comcast X Series Cable Boxes
- Cox’s Outline Box or Stream Player
- Android TV
- Apple TV
- Roku (added September 2020)
- Google Chromecast
- LG Smart TV
- Vizio Smart TV
- Xbox one
- Android and Apple mobile devices and tablets
- Windows and Mac computers
Peacock doesn’t have an app available for download on Amazon Fire TV. You can find the latest information on Peacock compatible devices here.
What TV shows and films does Peacock show?
With an extensive library of NBC TV programming and versatile films, the service has an exciting list of popular content available through Peacock.
One of the most compelling aspects of the new service will be the exclusive home to NBC’s hit comedy The Office. Although currently available to stream on Netflix, it was reported that all nine seasons of the show will move to Peacock by January 2021.
Take a look at the TV content that is part of Peacock’s offerings:
Soap opera
- Office (since 2021)
- Yellowstone
- Parks and Recreation Areas
- Saturday nightlife
- Hurrah
- Will and Grace
- 30 Rock
- Friday night lights
- house
- Downton abbey
- King of queens
- Fraser
- Everyone Loves Raymond
- The Law & Order Franchises
- Two and a half people
- Murder she wrote
Late night content from Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers is also available through the service
The two major NBC classics that Peacock lacks are Seinfeld and Friends. The streaming rights for both popular 1990s television series were recently acquired by Peacock’s rivals. Seinfeld can be found on Hulu, and Friends can now be found on HBO Max.
A wide range of films are also available through Peacock, including:
Movies on Peacock TV
- Bourne Franchise
- Jurassic Park
- Shrek
- Forget Sarah Marshall
- American psycho
- Fletch
- Mad Dogs
- The Big Lebowski
- Blair Witch Project
- Collection of the best films of Alfred Hitchcock
Peacock TV original content
In the battle for a sharp market share, streaming services are looking to create their own new content in addition to managing the availability of installed content. The Peacock is no different in this regard.
Original content online is only available to Peacock Premium subscribers. And while there is a pretty impressive list of original series that we’ll be reviewing, it’s worth noting that, in my experience, most of the original content is still marked “coming soon” when I reviewed the service for this review.
One of the originals already available for use, Peacock, is a reworked version of the classic kids’ cartoon Curious George.
The other is Brave New World, based on the popular novel of the same name.
Friends star David Schwimmer also stars in the original Peacock film, Intellect:
Here’s a rundown of some of the plans for original content on the platform that may debut in the not too distant future:
- Saved by the Bell: The reboot of the hit 1990s teen comedy will feature original series stars Mario Lopez (AC Slater) and Elizabeth Berkeley (Jesse Spano).
- AP Bio: After two seasons on NBC, this awesome comedy starring Glenn Howerton and Patton Oswalt is heading to the streaming service for Season 3.
- Battlestar Galactica: the reboot of the popular sci-fi series
- Girls5Eva: Produced by Tina Fey show on the return group 90, which became a big hit
- Punky Brewster: Another Reboot From The Popular 1980s Sitcom
- Who Wrote It: Saturday Night Live Papers Series From Creator Lorne Michaels
- Rutherford Falls: a comedy starring Ed Helms
- Straight Talk: A Comedy Featuring Rashida Jones and Jada Pinkett Smith
The platform will also feature original content from NBC nighttime television stars Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
Peacock TV Streaming channels
Peacock also presents original content as live streaming channels. Here you can find the latest news and sports content, as well as some of the popular NBCUniversal channels.
The channel menu includes
- NBC News Now
- SNL Vault
- Fallon tonight
- Today: all-day
- Sky News
- Office shorts
- CNBC: Do It
- NBC Sports: Tokyo Olympics
- Seth Meyers now
User experience with Peacock TV
For this review, I used my Xfinity internet client status to access Peacock Premium for free on an Xfinity Flex device .
I found the interface to be very clean and quiet, with a focus on easily searchable categories in a tile menu format.
Your options are pretty simple
- Channels (where you can find live streaming options)
- In trend
- TV show
- Movies
- Children
- news
- Sports
- Hispanic
How bad is the ad?
Since I have used the Peacock Premium product, my advertising experience has been satisfactory. For example, when I launched the popular Paramount series Yellowstone, I was only shown one five-second State Farm ad at the start of the show.
If you watch a movie, you get more than one commercial break.
Here’s a look at the streaming dashboard for The Bourne Identity, which runs for almost two hours.
You will notice that there are six dots in the streaming bar. Each of them means a break for advertising. If you buy a premium subscription, you should only see a short break at these locations.
Final thoughts on the peacock TV
Peacock entered the crowded streaming space in 2020, but NBCUniversal has reason to be optimistic about long-term success.
First of all, the decision to make parts of Peacock free and ad-supported may be the service’s biggest differentiator.
Further, the Office has very loyal followers. Having exclusive streaming rights for the Dunder Mifflin gang will be enough for some people to try out the service.
Finally, Peacock TV is in a unique position to have both a major television network (NBC) and a film producer (Universal) at its disposal. This gives streaming services a head start in content and may give them some resilience as the competition for streaming dollars becomes more competitive.
Are you looking to add Peacock to your streaming options? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
