Photo: Jenny Kane / AP / Shutterstock
NBCUniversal has spent millions promoting the launch of Peacock. Ads are everywhere and are very effective in selling the service. Unfortunately, many of the consumers inspired by those promotions to watch Peacock have just realized that you can’t do that on TV, if you at least stream with a Roku or Amazon Fire TV device. In the same way that HBO Max was unable to reach an agreement to obtain its service on those platforms, Peacock has so far been similarly affected by the demands of device manufacturers.
While the situation with Peacock is not identical to what is happening with HBO Max (and HBO Original Recipe, which will not be broadcast at all on Roku from next month), the basic problem comes down to two things: money (surprise !) and data. Like Apple, Roku long ago decided that he didn’t just want to make money selling hardware. Now it does much of its cash selling advertising, either by giving space on its home page to streamers looking to sell their apps and programs, or more recently, through its own Roku channel, which competes with services like Peacock. when adding content from the study library. and networks and offering them free to users. Peacock can have Parks and Recreation, but Brooke Shields’ legendary- (mediocre ily) sitcom Suddenly susan call the Roku channel home. (And if you don’t think I’ve been watching episodes of him on Roku, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention to my Twitter feed.)
Amazon and its Fire TV platform are also in the advertising business, mainly through the free streaming service IMDb TV (which is very similar to the Roku channel). And both companies have gone beyond simple ad sales: They also want to control how the public gets their broadcast programming. That may sound very consumer-friendly, except that it means that streamers relinquish control over how users experience and discover content from their platforms, and more importantly, it means losing access to valuable subscriber data, such as way subscribers go through a show.
Where is the battle now: Amazon is not commenting on conversations with the new streamers. But Roku isn’t hiding his desire to get paid for putting Peacock on his devices, blaming owner Comcast for the confrontation. “It is disappointing that Comcast has rejected reasonable and industry standard terms and decided not to launch Peacock on Roku at a time when streaming is on the rise,” a company representative said by email. “We want to bring Peacock closer to our large customer base of avid streamers … Unfortunately, Comcast is trying to launch a primarily ad-supported business and refuses to share the advertising model with platform partners.”
How will everything shake? Industry insiders familiar with the situation say NBCU is actually It is not refusing to compensate Roku (or Amazon) for being on those platforms. Their objections have focused on not wanting to give up control of their ad inventory and user experience. Earlier this week, a Peacock representative said negotiations were continuing. And late last month, Peacock boss Matt Strauss told me he had “hopes” that he could “get everyone on board” at some point. “I will not go into details of the ongoing negotiations,” he said. “But we believe that we offer all distribution partners a really interesting product. We have a different idea than others. And we think this should be very interesting for them. “
Meanwhile, Peacock’s social media managers have used the hashtag #FreeTheBird in explaining to customers why the app isn’t on some platforms.
