Peacock, the NBC universal streaming service initially launched in April, has entered into a distribution agreement with Google for its national expansion in July.
Google platforms and devices spanning Android, Android TV, and Chromecast will begin bringing Peacock on July 15. Thereafter, Peacock will offer a free tier with over 7,500 hours of movies and TV programming. The top tier, Peacock Premium, will have 15,000 hours of content, and Android and Android TV users will get Premium for free until October 15.
After the promotion ends, Peacock Premium subscribers will pay $ 5 a month, with the option to upgrade to an ad-free level for another $ 5 a month.
The Peacock launch was always planned as a two-step process, with an early launch favoring Comcast subscribers and then a national debut, with the last one initially scheduled for the Summer Olympics. When COVID-19 forced the postponement of the Tokyo Games until 2021, NBCU decided to stick to its plan, especially with the general increase in transmission during the stay-at-home orders for the coronavirus.
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The July 15 Peacock expansion will mark the end of an unprecedented wave of streaming investments, joining new services Apple, Disney, WarnerMedia and the well-funded startup Quibi. As with Disney + and HBO Max, timing is a crucial aspect of traction that Peacock will be able to get. Disney included Disney + with Hulu and ESPN + and also entered into a key agreement with Verizon in the US. USA And other partners at the international level. HBO Max also ran the table, but hasn’t made deals with Roku or Amazon Fire yet.
NBCU and parent Comcast started in April offering Peacock as a free service to Comcast Xfinity customers. Cox, a smaller pay-TV rival, has also been announced as a distribution partner. Steve Burke, who is ending his tenure at NBCU this summer, told investors in January, when he was still CEO, that he was optimistic that other distributors would follow Cox’s lead and welcome Peacock as a way to keep the customers in their ecosystems. That concept has been a guiding principle in Comcast’s Xfinity operation, which has integrated Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, and other streaming outlets into its broadband and linear offerings.
In a press release, Maggie McLean Suniewick, president of business development and partnerships, said Peacock is offered free of charge to distribution partners, including Google. “We want people everywhere to stream Peacock, and the Peacock Premium promotion demonstrates our commitment to providing incredible value to our mutual customers.”
Advertising, rather than distribution, is NBCU’s strategic focus. Like other media companies, she’s driving through a period of dramatic shifts in advertising spending, and she sees Peacock as a way to control her destiny as attention continues to shift toward streaming.
Comcast and NBCU have not offered any audiences or downloaded information since Peacock’s launch in mid-April, and have only said it has exceeded internal projections.
“As millions of our viewers have already seen the massive benefit of having Peacock available to them in the past few months, we hope to take advantage of the unprecedented reach of Google’s platforms and devices, to provide Peacock to even more fans on July 15.” said Matt Bond, president, content distribution, NBCU. “Google continues to be an excellent partner as our goal is to deliver NBCUniversal’s world-class content across all its platforms and devices.”
