New streaming providers seem to be popping up from every direction, on a near weekly basis.
And the recent pandemic has only accelerated the growth of video on demand services.
Whether it’s Disney Plus, HBO Max or Peacock, the choice of platforms often appears endless
So what actually is Peacock? What’s with the unusual name?
And how much impact has it had on the streaming industry during its short lifespan so far?
Here’s How It Happened.
First off, you should know that Peacock is a division of TV network NBCUniversal,
which is owned by American entertainment giant Comcast, the company responsible for the likes
of Dreamworks Animation, Xfinity cable services and the Sky Group that operates across Europe,
just to name a few of their properties.
With such a huge arsenal of tv and film at their disposal, it comes as quite a
surprise that NBC hadn’t dipped their toes into online streaming earlier, but then Comcast did
already own a minority stake in Hulu, so they weren’t completely late to the party.
After forming the company’s direct-to-consumer and digital enterprises arm in January 2019,
the new division became responsible for the firm’s
stakes in networking units like Fandango, Snap and Vox Media.
The only missing piece was their very own streaming service, which was formally announced
in September of that year, not far from the launches of Apple and Disney’s own releases,
and named Peacock, after the bird that appears in NBC’s famous logo.
Following a soft launch to some Comcast users in April 2020, Peacock went nationwide across
the US in July, with a subscription model to cater for all customers.
There was the free option, which offered 15,000 hours of content accompanied by short ads,
A premium service, which for $4.99 a month unlocked the entire Peacock library including
live sport and thousands more hours of content, And finally premium plus at $9.99 a month,
which offered everything ad-free, and with the additional benefit of being
able to download selected titles to your phone to watch later offline.
So what do you get for these kinds of prices?
Well subsidiary Universal’s back catalogue has provided the building blocks for Peacock,
And the service has slowly picked off other fan favourites from rivals,
like The Office, and Parks and Recreation.
To give you an example of how the free subscription works,
users don’t have to pay to watch the first 2 seasons of Michael Scott’s antics,
but would have to become premium members to access seasons 3 through 9.
Peacock also acquired the rights to live sport, including action from the Tokyo Olympic Games,
the English Premier League, and selected games from the NFL
As well as moving fairly aggressively into original programming, with shows like Dr
Death and a Saved By The Bell reboot already proving a hit with viewers.
Throw in exclusive shows with stars such as Jimmy Fallon and Kevin Hart,
and Peacock is starting to look like a serious contender in the streaming world.
The service has already racked up 50 million users a year after launch,
of which 10 million are paying, premium subscribers.
And there are plans to expand soon into Canada,
Europe and Australia, through partners Sky and NBCUniversal.
Peacock is already available on devices like Playstation,
Xbox and Roku, not to mention a number of popular brands of Smart TV.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried Peacock,
and which studio you’d next like to see launch their own on demand service.
And that’s How It Happened.
Thanks for watching!