NBCU Peacock Mixes Comforting Reruns and High-Profile Originals
By now, the average streaming household wants another OTT service about as much as it wants a nasty case of termites, but NBCUniversal has given details for its upcoming play and the results are surprisingly not bad.
NBCU's service will be called Peacock and it will have over 15,000 hours of material when it debuts in April 2020. Pricing hasn't been announced yet. In January, reports said the service would be ad-supported and free for authenticated pay TV customer and available for subscription to others. But all NBCU said today is that Peacock will be supported by ads and subscriptions.
The streaming race is defined by high-profile originals and comfort food reruns. Peacock will have both. Originals will include a reboot of Battlestar Galactica from Sam Esmail (of Mr. Robot and Homecoming), a reboot of Saved By the Bell (featuring Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley), a reboot of Punky Brewster (starring Soleil Moon Frye), and a new season of A.P. Bio. The second Psych movie will debut on Peacock, but Variety reports it might go to USA Network sometime after that.
Comforting reruns on Peacock will include The Office, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, Cheers, Saturday Night Live, Downton Abbey, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Will and Grace, and many others.
NBCU is already planning the major push it's going to give Peacock during the Summer Olympics in late July 2020. The OTT space is already feeling overloaded, but if the price is right NBCU's mix of old and new could find an audience.
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