Peacock

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About

Peacock is a free streaming service developed by NBCUniversal prioritizing NBC content. The platform is intended to rival streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ by making popular shows such as The Office and Parks and Recreation exclusive to the platform. It is also free to get, with a paid premium service available to those who want to use the platform without advertisements.

History

In January of 2019, NBC announced it would be launching a streaming service in 2020.^[1] In September of 2019, NBC announced the streaming service would be named "Peacock." The announcement also included news of original programming and plans to have popular television shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation removed from rival streaming services so they could stream exclusively on Peacock.^[2] Parks and Rec will begin streaming exclusively on the platform in October of 2020 and The Office in January of 2021. The platform soft-launched to Xfinity customers in April of 2020 and released widely on July 15th, 2020.^[3]

Peacock offers three tiers of service: free, premium, and premium plus. The free tier offers users a subset of all content available on the platform with ads, the premium tier has all the content and ads, and premium plus has all the content and no ads. It is available with most television hubs but is not available on Amazon or Roku.^[5]

Online Presence

The app launched to lukewarm reviews. The Verge^[4] wrote "the app feels crowded with features that are only half-figured out when, in reality, all I really want from a streaming service is my shows and movies in one place that’s easy enough to browse through and with thoughtful content design." Salon,^[6] in a more positive piece, ran down the app's selection of content and wrote, "The free service is well worth the effort to put the app on your TV, even with ads." Reviews.org mentioned the free service was fine and the ads weren't bad, but bemoaned the lack of availability on Roku and Amazon Fire (shown below).

On Reddit, users expressed interest in some of the app's original content. For example, a post about the app's original series Brave New World gained over 680 points in /r/scifi.^[7] A post about a Law and Order spinoff focusing on hate crimes gained over 7,900 points in /r/television.^[8]