The logo of the new Peacock streaming service is not actually a peacock, but six colored dots. Both the name and the palette are meant to invoke Peacock’s parent company NBCUniversal under the umbrella of cable giant Comcast. But at the same time, it’s not supposed to remind viewers too much of his corporate cousin. “We made the strategic decision not to call ourselves NBC Plus,” said President Matt Strauss. Vulture last week, in implicit contrast to some natural comparisons. It’s simple: Peacock is the NBC streaming service, but it’s not alone the NBC broadcast service; You want to leverage the brand on its back without being limited by it. Simple!
Peacock’s contortions are reminiscent of those of HBO Max, his immediate predecessor in the still intense Streaming wars. Carefully studying his initial blackboard, contradictions abound. The Peacock catalog is anchored by NBCU stalwarts: Bravo’s full battery of reality hits; America’s expansive blue skies; sitcoms like Frasier and The office, in 2021, but it also has originals like Westworld-is that Brave New World adaptation anchored by Alden Ehrenreich. (Many of those originals have IP links, like a Psychoanalyze sequel movie and an upcoming Saved by the Bell reboot, which increases confusion.) Peacock seems built to be an in-house host of lucrative titles rather than leasing to third parties like Netflix, and yet Peacock is renting external offerings like Western drama Yellowstone and romantic drama Ghost Thread. On a structural level, Peacock is tied to the orthodox institution of broadcast television and an aspiring competitor, which is why many NBC affiliates refused to cast the hybrid. 30 rocks initial meeting and presentation that served as a one-hour announcement for the new product.
But Peacock has a competitive advantage that HBO Max, Disney +, and other recent contenders don’t have – it’s free.
Of course, even the price turns out to be somewhat conflicting. Peacock is a multi-level service. There’s a free introductory tier, which still requires users to create an account linked to their email; a premium tier that costs $ 4.99 a month, but with ads; and a premium tier that costs $ 9.99 a month, for the same content (and name) but no ads. Peacock argues that the free tier is not a basic facsimile meant to lure subscribers with mocking clues to the real. Rather, it is an attraction of its own: it has full stations of everything from True housewives to real pain, in addition to older classics like Columbo; next day access to NBC shows in its early seasons; and live “channels” that simulate the experience of navigating a living room suite with options like All day today and Saturday night live sketches Overall, the free tier adds up to 13,000 hours of content:and Ads are limited to just five minutes of commercials per hour, much less than on linear television or even the ad-supported version of Hulu.
With so much on display for so little, what do Peacock Premium subscribers get? The subscription unlocks a wide range of options: full seasons of Peacock originals (free users can only access the first episodes); sports broadcasts, such as Premier League soccer; next day access to all currently broadcasting NBC shows; and early access to nightly shows like Late night with Seth Meyers (under a non-pandemic production schedule). But the premium tier ends with just 7,000 additional hours of content for a substantially higher price. Production of many Peacock originals is on hiatus due to the coronavirus, so those shows won’t serve as an incentive to cross the pay wall as soon as executives might have expected.
Nor do the unexpected obstacles stop there. The pandemic also thwarted what was supposed to be Peacock’s perfect partnership: the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which will still air on NBC, but now run until 2021. The service’s launch was scheduled to coincide with the Games of Summer. Even beyond the state of the world, Peacock’s early days have been far from uninterrupted. Like WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal has yet to come to an agreement with Amazon or Roku, which collectively serve some 80 million active users; Owners of devices like Fire TV Stick or Roku TV have to resort to an HDMI cable, Chromecast or even just their tablet or desktop computer. Alleged marquee titles like Universal’s Fast and Furious They have already disappeared due to the endless party of musical chairs that is broadcasting the rights. Conversely, a supposed flagship like 30 rocks remains available on both Hulu and Amazon Prime.
And yet any description of Peacock’s shortcomings compares to a compelling, basic fact: It has a lot of things that people really want to see, and it allows them to see it with minimal effort and expense. The “channels” tab is irregular, difficult to navigate and confusing. (Why can you tune into a stream of old SNL material that someone else has curated, but can’t watch full episodes to watch for yourself.) But even if the function is not easy to use, it is easy to ignore it. Within minutes of opening the site, I found myself caught up in a binge of Under the Mediterranean cover, my forgotten complaints in a haze of blue waters and drunken fights. Peacock has much of the archival muscle of a contender like HBO Max, and that strategy for gaining traction has been much easier than betting on unproven originals. Combine that drawing with an almost insignificant barrier to entry: Peacock is not a walled garden, but a semi-public park.
Peacock is the final debut in a series of new high-profile entertainment centers, starting with Disney + and Apple TV + last fall and continuing with Max and Quibi this spring. But according to Strauss, Peacock is not intended to be a direct competitor to its immediate predecessors, who face entrenched digital natives with billions to burn. The free but ad-supported broadcast space is much less crowded, at least for now. Current leaders include Tubi, recently acquired by Fox, and Pluto TV, under the auspices of ViacomCBS (but not to be confused with CBS All Access). Amazon is currently promoting free IMDb television (where you can now watch Crazy men with ads), a product theoretically distinct from the streaming component of your Prime membership level.
Peacock’s own brand struggles pale in comparison to these relative obscurities, although all of them are much lower than typical streaming reproduction. No one will be forced to wonder if they have another line item in their content budget in the midst of a growing recession. Even the need for a premium tier, Strauss also argued that Vulture, it could eventually become debatable through partnerships with cable and internet providers like the ones Peacock now has with Cox and Xfinity, another Comcast subsidiary: “The long-term vision is that we really believe that through the grouping and these integrations of partners, both internet and pay TV, we will be able to reach most of the country and give them some form of access to Peacock for free. “The proliferation of independent services has begun to make the single window of a cable package, and Digital equivalents like Disney’s Hulu-ESPN + -Disney + bundle are looking more and more attractive, Peacock doesn’t change as much as it relies on it, appealing to both overloaded cable cutters and hardcore box owners .
Peacock accomplishes something promising both in its deployment and in the use of advertising and distributors: it provides the convenience of streaming, coupled with old-school cable infrastructure. This also means that the first few months of service are less important than, for example, the impending end of Quibi’s 90-day free trial. Peacock has plenty of time to settle and discover. And meanwhile, U.S have plenty of time to immerse yourself in something vintage Law.
