NBCUniversal’s Peacock TV has now officially started streaming, completing a period that has seen a number of high profile streaming services entering the market, including HBO Max. With Peacock now live, consumers have the option to add this to their ever-growing list of solutions for movies and show episodes delivered over the internet.
In spite of having arrived late to the market compared to other streaming services, NBCU first officially confirmed it was entering the streaming arena in January of 2019. At the time, the details were extremely limited with NBCU mostly focusing on how the service would launch with a free tier. In fact, it wasn’t until September of 2019 when NBCU confirmed the name of the service as “Peacock” and provided firmer details on what the service was likely to offer. Since then, the updates have routinely come through, setting the stage for a July 15 launch date.
The Peacock website has now officially started streaming, with consumers able to choose between three different price tiers with the experience different depending on the cost. The cheapest option is actually free with the AVOD tier providing access to more than 13,000 hours of content. The middle tier is the Peacock premium plan and while costing $4,99 per month, this plan provides unlimited access to all of the content available on the platform, totaling more than 20,000 hours. Completing the list is the premium-ad free option. Priced at $9.99 per month, this plan is identical to the standard premium plan, with the notable exception of no ads.
NBC finally joins the ‘streaming wars’
Similar to AT&T and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max streaming service that launched in May, NBCU is banking heavily on the appeal of its catalog of new and old movies and shows to draw in the subscribers. Of course, in comparison to HBO Max, NBCU does have the added benefit of a multi-tiered pricing system. Even at the most expensive level, with unlimited access to ad-free content, Peacock is still considerably cheaper than HBO Max.
To further help the launch, NBCU has also banked on various discounts and promotions to add early subscribers. For example, select Comcast Xfinity customers had access to Peacock for the last couple of months with the company giving them the standard premium subscription for free, with the option to upgrade for just $5 per month.
Likewise, NBCU was previously running a pre-order promotion that meant consumers could save up to 40 percent of the cost of an annual subscription. For the standard Peacock subscription, this effectively brought the cost down to just $29.99 for the first year. If all that was not enough, NBCU also partnered with Google and is currently offering Android mobile Android TV users the option to stream Peacock premium for free for the first three months.
Whether all these promotions and discounts, as well as the 1000s of hours of content available to stream is enough to offset the service’s late arrival remains to be seen. Then again, with live TV streaming prices constantly on the rise, there just might be an opening for a service like Peacock that bridges subscription content with access to current live TV programming and sports.
Source: Peacock
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