On July 15th, 2020 NBC launched their new streaming service titled Peacock. Peacock for now is a US only over-the-top subscription video on demand streaming service owned and operated by the Television and Streaming division of NBCUniversal,

NBC says the Peacock service will offer access to more than 20,000 hours of content drawing on the vast back catalogs of NBC’s shows, Universal’s films, and original content including top shows and movies like 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Saturday Night Live, Psych, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, Downton Abbey, Suits, Royal Pains, Columbo, The Matrix series, Phantom Thread, the Bourne films, Jurassic Park franchise, and more. One show that is absent at launch will be The Office, as Netflix in the US still holds streaming rights for that series through the end of 2020. It’ll arrive on Peacock in 2021.

The service is the last big streaming service to launch in the US in 2020 after already seeing Disney+, Apple+ and HBO Max launch and joins a crowded space that already includes Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, CBS All Access and others.

Peacock’s service has 3 pricing tiers:

1) Free - This comes with a limited amount of content and ads.

2) Premium $4.99 (US) per month - This comes with all the content and some ads.

3) Premium Plus $9.99 (US) per month - This comes with all content and is ad free, although the ad free plan isn’t totally ad-free: the company warns that “due to streaming rights, a small amount of programming — Peacock channels, events, and a few shows and movies — will still contain ads.”

We started off by downloading the app to our Apple TV which was simple enough.

Downloading Peacock from the Apple TV App Store

When you first open the app you are met with the title screen.

Once you click on sign up, you simply enter your email and pick a password.

After signing up for the free service you are sent to the ‘browse’ page where you can start to look under the hood and see what is available.

One thing that is missing right at launch is individual profiles which have become typical with most other streaming services.

Peacock is currently available on Android, Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS, Xbox One, Vizio SmartCast TVs, and LG Smart TV. It’ll have an app released for the PlayStation 4 during the week of July 20th. There’s also a desktop web player for streaming on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook devices.

Notably missing from that list: Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku, neither of which can access Peacock for now. NBCUniversal has indicated on its Peacock Twitter account that it’s in talks with Amazon.

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Browsing around the free version of the service offers a glimpse of what is available to stream at each subscription level.

Peacock TV Series

Below we scroll through all the TV series from A - Z.

There is a lot of shows that are available on the free version but not everything.

As an example Law & Order: Criminal Intent has 10 full seasons available for free.

While Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has 21 seasons of the show available but only season 1 has all the episodes available for free.

Season 2 has the first few episodes for free but after that you need a paid subscription to watch any of the other episodes.

The little purple icon beside the seasons and in the top left corner of the episodes indicate that you can only watch this content with a paid subscription. This is a nice easy way for users to see what is free and what requires a subscription.

One of the big rumours before the launch of Peacock was that all of the original Law & Order series would be available.

Unfortunately only seasons 13-20 are there and they require a paid subscription to watch any of the episodes. NBC hasn’t given any indication where the previous 12 seasons are. This was a bit disappointing

You can watch every season and episode of SNL for free. Most recent episodes require a paid subscription though.

All 46 seasons of Saturday Night Live are available for free.

Peacock Originals

Peacock also has some exclusive original series. There is an upcoming Saved by the Bell reboot show as well as a Punky Brewster rebooted series.

Although it says there are 20 seasons of The Johnny Carson Show available not every season has all the episodes. Still a blast from the past.

20 seasons of Johnny Carson are available

Peacock Movies

There is a huge section of movies available some are free some require a paid subscription.

A sample of some of the more modern movies.

Kids Section

There is a small section of kids friendly content as well.

Channels section which has cultivated content clips on rotation.

While the free option of Peacock is a nice feather in the cap of streaming options out there we’re not sure who the service is aimed at especially since most of the content here is already available on Hulu.

Again there are some original series and one or two shows that are unique to Peacock but that certainly isn’t enough to get someone like me to cancel my Hulu commercial free subscription for $11.99 a month to switch over to Peacock’s $9.99 a month commercial free service.

Especially considering Hulu comes with additional content from ABC, Fox and NBC as well as a host of other networks. I can see some folks subscribing to this service for a month or two here and there once and awhile but not long term.

Peacock lacks certain features that other streaming services include. There are no individual streaming profiles. I also found that Peacock had trouble keeping track of where I was with some shows. There is also no way to skip the opening title sequence when watching shows.

UPDATE: Peacock has since gone on to add user profiles and the ability to skip intro title sequences since it’s launch.

Peacock does offer the ability to download certain shows on small screen devices like tablets and smartphones through their app so you can watch them offline.

I suspect that NBC will aim to launch a version of Peacock eventually in international markets although they haven’t said anything official. CBS launched a limited version of their All Access service (now called Paramount+) into Canada in April 2018 and haven’t really grown that service since it’s launch, instead still licensing many of their bigger shows to Canadian networks like Global, CTV and CityTV leaving Canadian cord cutters without a proper option to stream these shows.

It remains to be seen if NBC will continue to licence their content to Canadian networks or start to pull back their shows as to launch a version of Peacock in Canada. For now this is just another streaming service Canadians would be happy to try but not have available to them officially.

UPDATE: NBC has expanded Peacock since it’s launch. One of the big expansions is that NBC shut down its sports channel NBC Sports as of Jan 1st, 2022 and shifted its sports content to other owned NBC properties like USA Network and its Peacock streaming service.

The 2022 Winter Olympics will also stream on Peacock. Source

Like with all new services that launch we’ll keep an eye on Peacock and come back to check it out 6 months later after launch and see how it has evolved. Perhaps NBC will continue to add more content to it over time. We will see.

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NBC launches new Peacock streaming service.

Peacock TV Series

Peacock Originals

Peacock Movies

Kids Section