Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service that launched in April in Comcast homes, started expanding nationally overnight as Tuesday turned to Wednesday on the East Coast.
Along with Comcast’s X1 and Flex, Peacock will be available on Apple and Google platforms, Microsoft’s Xbox, Vizio and LG smart TVs, Cox Contour and, starting next week, Sony PlayStation. Talks are ongoing with major distributors like Amazon Fire and Roku, but those two top platforms are still on the sidelines as of now.
Peacock will offer 13,000 hours on its free tier and 20,000 hours on its subscription level, sourced from a range of networks and studios both inside and outside of NBCU. Nine Peacock Original movies and shows are available at launch, with others following through the end of the year. (Deadline reported Tuesday on the latest release dates for several shows arriving after today’s expansion.)
There will be more than 30 curated channels, current-season series and specials from NBC and Telemundo, as well as live news and sports. A “trending” section will offer highlights from Today, NBC Nightly News, Meet the Press, Noticias Telemundo, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, E! News and Access Hollywood.
The Premium tier costs $5 a month, though some distribution partners (and Comcast) are bundling it at no extra cost to customers, at least on an extended-trial basis. Regardless of the price they pay for Premium, subscribers can also pay $5 more per month to get an ad-free version of Peacock.
Both free and Premium tiers will feature current NBC shows — on the free level, they will be available a week after linear air, and on Premium they’ll be there the next day.
The roster includes NBC News Now and Sky News and channels derived from shows like The Office (“Office Shorts”), Saturday Night Live (“SNL Vault”), The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (“Fallon Tonight”), Late Night With Seth Meyers (“Seth Meyers Now”). Genre channels include CNBC Make It, Today All Day, CNBC Ka-Ching, American Greed, 80s Mixtape, True Crime, Kiss Me Deadly, Peacock Reality, Out of This World, Caso Cerrado and I Love Jenni.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Deadline