NBC's Streaming Service 'Peacock' Launching in July With Three Subscription Tiers

[Stewie]

I'm old enough to remember when cable television first appeared in my area. It was $6 a month and I thought, "Why would anyone pay for something that's already free?" The promise cable made in that era was there it would be ad-free, plus it would have content you couldn't find on network television. You were paying for the service, so that's how they would make their money. But of course, the lure of even more money was too great to resist, so cable companies started running ads AND charging a monthly fee. To this day, I've never paid for cable (except when my only choice for Internet was a bundled cable package that I never watched). I happily pay for Internet connectivity, since that gives me control over what I view and when I view it. So in concept, I like streaming services. I expect that in several years there will be a shake-out and some services will survive, some will get absorbed and others will disappear. It probably will be the customers that decide their fate, though, not a cable company.

You might be too old that you are forgetting why cable was invented. It was never a promise of ad free. Cable TV was there for people like me who grew up in the mountains of western Maryland (Or other areas where OTA couldn't reach) where you could get nothing off an antenna. Cable TV was there to provide us folks with the same OTA content that people in major cities could get for free. Same shows, same ads, just access. I am 50 and remember we always had cable in our houses as that was the only way to watch TV.

Cable TV itself was never intended to be ad-free.

 

[alent1234]

What is the breaking point? Will people look at it and allocate 40 bucks a month to streaming? How much did cable cost? Or will people just look at this as being too fractured and slide back into pirating content because it's easier.

who says you have to pay for all the services? I cancelled Disney after Mando ended. going to cancel CBS after Picard ends too. Netflix is the only one worth keeping and I get it free as part of my cell phone service
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So there is a free tier with ads and a $4.99 per month tier that also includes ads?

I think the $5 tier includes EPL and other sports

 

[fairuz]

I am so far in the opposite opinion that I can’t even comprehend where you’re coming from!

I’m in my early 40’s & have literally NEVER paid for cable.
Cinema was my love. Television shows were primarily low-budget/bad acting garbage (with the rare stand out gem, like X-Files or Twin Peaks)... fast forward 20 years & things are now absolutely awesome, imo.
The “television” being offered now has more creativity than standard Hollywood films, by a long shot.
It is absolute role-reversal. The best tales currently being told are on streaming services!
Even when films like Harry Potter were coming out... it took like 10 years to cover the 7 books.
Compare that to something like the Witcher coming out now- 9 episodes, each an hour... all dropping on the same day.
Thats crazy to me. 4 films worth of storyline, no commercials, no wait, no hassle.

Unclear what’s “complicated” about the current state of affairs. No contracts. No commitments. It’s all RIDICULOUSLY simple. Your sig line says you are experienced in tech.... so having like 3-4 sign ins can’t be befuddling you.
If I had to guess: I’d say that you’re making lame excuses to feel vindicated for your sense of entitlement & decision that you don’t think the creators that are making FANTASTIC television right now deserve any money for it from you, whatsoever... you don’t care that they did away with force feeding commercials (like I do!) & want to show support of that far superior business model by subscribing to the services that carry the shows you consider worthwhile- you’d rather make a list of shows that are good, then go pirate them.
Wow. Super cool, Mr. Software Engineer.
I suppose you think it’s fine if you and/or any of your peers created an awesome piece of software, but nobody paid for it? I mean, it’s fine if they enjoy it without paying you, the creator, right? You know “how complicated things are” when it comes to paying to enjoy what others created, so they could make a living!

Having to track where things are shown is complicated. It was just Netflix and maybe Hulu before, now it's like 10 different things, and a lot of them have ads despite what you say. Yes, it can bother me. I rarely watched TV before and especially don't watch it now. I'm not entitled to TV, I wouldn't care if it disappeared tomorrow.
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I absolutely think that most people totally know how much of a waste of time it is to watch ads and would avoid them if at all possible.

Nothing ad-supported is super necessary. The market makes it clear that enough consumers prefer ads over paying that we have so many ad-supported (or partially so) services. And advertising works so well that it's worth the huge cost to advertisers.

 

[JoeShades]

So will this include legacy content that was on NBC (shows like Seinfeld, ER, LA Law, etc.) or does that depend on the content owner? I’m assuming because Friends is owned by Warner Bros it will be part of HBO Max not this service.

Hate on cable/satellite all you want but you didn’t need to know/have to care who owned what you just needed to know what channel it was on. And most people remember what network a show was on more than who owns it. People remember that shows like Seinfeld, Friends, West Wing were on NBC or NYPD Blue was on ABC. Now with all this unbundling you have to know who owns what because it determines what service you sign up for as all the content owners are now becoming distributors. Can someone tell me how all this unbundling is better for consumers?

All Law and Order shows will be part of it

 

[KrispE00]

So are we getting 4K content???

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

Having to track where things are shown is complicated. It was just Netflix and maybe Hulu before, now it's like 10 different things, and a lot of them have ads despite what you say. Yes, it can bother me. I rarely watched TV before and especially don't watch it now. I'm not entitled to TV, I wouldn't care if it disappeared tomorrow.
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Your story isn’t adding up, man.
Sounds like you’re trying to claim both sides of the tracks!
You are either someone only moderately into television, or just barely into television (as you claim); in which case “just Netflix and maybe Hulu” are more than enough, and likely overkilll.
Conversely, you could be an absolutely tv maniac, watching many many hours of shows every day, finding that subscribing to 10 different services is a necessity for you.
Since those are polar opposites- it’s obviously disingenuous to claim that you both “don’t care if tv disappears tomorrow”, whilst ALSO claiming that you’d have to subscribe to 10 disparate services to get your entertainment needs met.
Again... it seems to me like you've simply created a false narrative, in which you’re a victim- with no choice but to pirate the myriad shows that you’d watch, that are spread out across 10 separate services, due to the difficulty in tracking all your favorite shows.
Sorry... but I’m not gonna be your “yes man” on this.
If you’re only watching a teeny bit of tv- get a single service. If you are watching such an enormous volume of shows that they’re on 10 different services.... well, I’m not going to judge you for pirating half of them, if you’re in economic dire straits, or for 3 or 4 one off shows that aren’t worth subs to an entire service for- but if you’re consuming that much tv, surely you should make sure that the 3 or 4 services you watch the most are receiving revenue for your viewing, yeah?
That only seems fair.

 

[Diode]

Lame, I got excited for a second regarding the Olympic coverage but realized its still the lame end of the day digested content. Give us access to a live stream of the event...

 

[salz4life]

What is the breaking point? Will people look at it and allocate 40 bucks a month to streaming? How much did cable cost? Or will people just look at this as being too fractured and slide back into pirating content because it's easier.

I think eventually, piracy will increase again. Streaming is eventually (I guess you could say already is) going to be a new form of cable. Luckily, I'm still with Xfinity so I will get this free (w/ads). I also have Disney + free for the year as I am a Verizon customer. That's how these services are going to survive in the short term... partnering up with other companies to bundle.

 

[Michael Scrip]

These streaming services are going to end up being be so much more expensive and less convenient than cable.

Netflix's most expensive plan is $16/month... and that gives you far more content than any human can possibly watch.

Even if you had Netflix and Hulu and Disney+... you'd still pay less than a cable TV subscription.

And streaming is all On-Demand... while cable still clings to the outdated model of scheduled programming. You've gotta be home on a Tuesday at 8:30pm to watch a certain show. That is... unless you also pay for a DVR box... at an additional monthly cost.

Cable is silly nowadays... in my opinion.

And before anyone say it... yes... you still need to pay for internet... probably from the cable company.

So what I'm talking about is the cable TV channel packages. You know... the bundle of 200+ channels (with ads)

And I've never heard of cable TV being "convenient"

You're forced to watch TV on someone else's schedule. (unless you pay for a DVR box for each TV in your house)

So yeah... streaming might be a mess... but cable ain't all roses either!

 

[DocPenguin]

I'm glad my private torrent trackers are alive and well. I hope all this fragmentation will come back to haunt the TV/Movie industry. The music industry got it right with their streaming model. One fee, all you can eat, and piracy dropped way off. This fragmented TV/Movie streaming model is going to encourage a significant uptick in piracy.

 

[JBGoode]

Netflix's most expensive plan is $16/month... and that gives you far more content than any human can possibly watch.

Even if you had Netflix and Hulu and Disney+... you'd still pay less than a cable TV subscription.

And streaming is all On-Demand... while cable still clings to the outdated model of scheduled programming. You've gotta be home on a Tuesday at 8:30pm to watch a certain show. That is... unless you also pay for a DVR box... at an additional monthly cost.

Cable is silly nowadays... in my opinion.

And before anyone say it... yes... you still need to pay for internet... probably from the cable company.

So what I'm talking about is the cable TV channel packages. You know... the bundle of 200+ channels (with ads)

And I've never heard of cable TV being "convenient"

You're forced to watch TV on someone else's schedule. (unless you pay for a DVR box for each TV in your house)

So yeah... streaming might be a mess... but cable ain't all roses either!

The vast majority of cable providers have on-demand programming that can be watched on the user's schedule, usually within 24 hours of the initial broadcast. Before I got rid of my box, I almost never watched a show at it's scheduled date/time and I did not have a DVR. I had cable up until 6 months ago and had not watched TV on their schedule for years. Just pointing that out since it doesn't seem that you are aware of this.

 

[salz4life]

So, for Premier League fans, will this take the place of NBC Sports Gold and we will get all the games again? Being an Everton supporter, it's rare they get on TV unless they are playing the Manchesters, Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal.

 

[Braderunner]

I’m not paying anything if there’s ads, it should be like Spotify then.

Edit: So the first tier is free and ad supported and the second is $5 and ad supported?

Ha Ha!!! Yeah, you can be annoyed by the ads for free...or...pay to be annoyed by the ads!

 

[rmsanger]

This is they type of stuff that will keep me away from content forever.

 

[nburwell]

Netflix, Hulu w/ Live TV, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now (and Apple TV+ which we get for free) are more than enough for us. My wife subscribes to Disney Plus for our niece and nephew, but we don't make much use of it ourselves yet.

I'll probably purchase the entire The Office series on iTunes once it's pulled from Netflix. Dr. Death seems interesting as I was a fan of the podcast, but I'd more than likely wait until all episodes are released, binge it, then cancel my subscription.

 

[Michael Scrip]

The vast majority of cable providers have on-demand programming that can be watched on the user's schedule, usually within 24 hours of the initial broadcast. Before I got rid of my box, I almost never watched a show at it's scheduled date/time and I did not have a DVR. I had cable up until 6 months ago and had not watched TV on their schedule for years. Just pointing that out since it doesn't seem that you are aware of this.

Yes I'm aware... some cable subscriptions have a selection of On-Demand content.

It's still not as much at Netflix, Hulu, Disney, etc.

I see NCIS is available on Spectrum On-Demand... but with only 24 episodes. Three episodes from the current Season 17... two episodes from Season 16... and 19 episodes from Season 5.

Random, huh?

It should be noted that there are 390 total episodes of NCIS.

Other series have the same thing: a random sampling of on-demand episodes.

How much did your cable subscription cost? That was the topic I was replying to in the first place.

I hear people say "if you subscribe to a bunch of streaming services... you might as well stick to cable"

So my point was... they're two different solutions offering different programming options.

Also... why did you get rid of cable if it's so good?

You're not alone... cable TV subscriptions have been declining for years. People are finding other solutions.
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I'll probably purchase the entire The Office series on iTunes once it's pulled from Netflix.

I just bought The Office entire series on iTunes for $30 today.

Go get it!

 

[jlc1978]

How do you figure? You still can't subscribe just to the channels you want and no one seems to know why.

Money. You need a certain subscription base to make it worthwhile and it's simply not economically viable to offer all channels a la carte. If they went to everything a la carte the less popular channels that currently survive because they get a tiny slice of money from every subscriber so the 3 people that actually watch them get susbsidized by the many that don't. Some do offer subscription, such as tennis channel but they run $60/year or 10 for one day, about what others chareg for a bundle.

Personally I have YouTube TV and what I would LOVE is to be able to buy a similar service from Apple that's totally ala carte.

They do, it's called iTunes. You can buy seasons of TV there, for a price.

 

[JoeShades]

Netflix, Hulu w/ Live TV, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now (and Apple TV+ which we get for free) are more than enough for us. My wife subscribes to Disney Plus for our niece and nephew, but we don't make much use of it ourselves yet.

I'll probably purchase the entire The Office series on iTunes once it's pulled from Netflix. Dr. Death seems interesting as I was a fan of the podcast, but I'd more than likely wait until all episodes are released, binge it, then cancel my subscription.

Ge it now https://9to5toys.com/2020/01/17/the-office-movie-sale-apple/

 

[JBGoode]

Yes I'm aware... some cable subscriptions have a selection of On-Demand content.

It's still not as much at Netflix, Hulu, Disney, etc.

I see NCIS is available on Spectrum On-Demand... but with only 24 episodes. Three episodes from the current Season 17... two episodes from Season 16... and 19 episodes from Season 5.

Random, huh?

It should be noted that there are 390 total episodes of NCIS.

Other series have the same thing: a random sampling of on-demand episodes.

How much did your cable subscription cost? That was the topic I was replying to in the first place.

I hear people say "if you subscribe to a bunch of streaming services... you might as well stick to cable"

So my point was... they're two different solutions offering different programming options.

Also... why did you get rid of cable if it's so good?

You're not alone... cable TV subscriptions have been declining for years. People are finding other solutions.
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I just bought The Office entire series on iTunes for $30 today.

Go get it!

My point about not watching TV on their schedule was regarding the latest episodes of shows I followed which were all on demand, not random episodes of NCIS.

My bill was about to increase to 180/month (with internet)which is why I dropped the box in favor of an a la carte selection of channels for 30/month so my total bill is 100 with internet.. I don’t watch enough TV to justify the full cost especially when I could just purchase seasons of the few shows I watch for less money. Everything else I’m slightly interested in will probably drop on Netflix eventually. I never stated I thought cable was “so good”, I was pointing out a feature that seemed you were not aware of.

 

[pedregosa]

I only keep my Sling Blue subscription for the NBC channels to watch the Premier League. If they show the same games live this will be a no brainier for me and i'll be saving a lot each month.

That’s what I was hoping. But if you look at the small print in their launch materials, they say it is Premier League games not shown on live TV. So it’s more like what they have previously sold as part of the NBC Sports Gold add-on. Not a substitute for NBC Soorts itself, unfortunately

 

[Hatshepsut]

Ok, starting to feel a little nostalgic for cable now. I mean, a lot of the streaming-only content is great, but I'm missing the days when I had one bill and one platform. And I still only watch probably 1% of everything that's actually available, so I'm still in the position of subsidizing a lot of content I don't care about without the advantage of having it all in one place.

Although actually the current model does have another advantage: I can pretty easily subscribe to one service for a month or two and then drop it so I'm not juggling too many services (and monthly bills) at once, but still leaving me with most of the available content--not really an option with cable.

 

[Lazlow]

Pretty soon we'll have companies that you pay $50 a month for access to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Apple+, HBO Go, and Peacock... and just like that, we'll have gone full circle and have cable companies again.

 

[Justanotherfanboy]

I'm all for choice but this is insane.

We were discussing ala carte TV way back in the early 2000's but, of course, we never anticipated having to pay a monthly fee for each individual item.

I love the competition, but we're up to .... what ..... 17 streaming services now?

Netflix
Hulu
Amazon Prime
YouTube Red
CBS
Disney
Apple TV
HBO Now
AT&T
ESPN
CrunchyRoll
VRV
Starz
[Peacock]

Not saying that i have to pay for them all.

That’s not remotely “insane”.
You just listed less streaming services than there are car companies... or types of toothpaste... or styles of socks... or pretty much any other consumer choice.
People aren’t walking everywhere, barefoot, w/ bad breath- due to abundance of choices in those categories.
We seem as a species to be able to handily navigate choice.
What’s actually kinda insane... is some of the literally thousands of rando tv channels that exist in the world as “padding”. Channels nearly nobody watches, added on cheaply by cable companies so they can say you have “over 175 channels”, rather than the 4 people are actually watching.
Streaming has solved that!
If 15 golf streaming services come out- at least 14 will quickly fail. For the first time in the history of television, consumers, and NOT companies are in control of the success or failure of content.
You think crap like the home shopping network would exist, if people were given the choice not to pay for them?
That is the best part about this move away from cable, imo.
It seems clear that the quality of content simply MUST increase for media companies to survive.
We’re still in a fairly nascent position, and already the quality on Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc. are orders of magnitude higher than traditional networks.
I don’t believe streaming services will ever number in the thousands. It seems logical that the market will saturate with a peak of perhaps several dozen (some mainstream; some niche), and the ones that suck will simply fail.
Kinda like restaurants... nobody is stopping anybody from opening crappy eateries, but if they can’t find clientele, they’re bound to close up shop.

I have spoken.

 

[gridlocked]

People are hung up on getting 'channels' when what people actually watch is content.

 

[MacClueless]

They do, it's called iTunes. You can buy seasons of TV there, for a price.

No, I meant a streaming service.