Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service, has a free, ad-supported tier of service, along with two paid tiers ($5 per month with ads and $10 per month without).
Sign up for free and you get access to two-thirds of the library of about 20,000 shows, movies, news, sports, and exclusive original programming. It includes current-season NBC broadcasts a week after they air, plus a mix of classic TV shows, movies, news, and sports programming from several of the parent company’s properties, including NBC, Universal Studios, USA Network, Syfy, Bravo, Telemundo, and Universal Kids.
Along with NBC shows such as “30 Rock,” “Parks and Recreation,” and “Saved by the Bell,” the service is now also home to “The Office,” which was previously streaming on Netflix. And the service is planning to license shows from other networks, including A&E, ABC, Fox, and ViacomCBS, which owns the Paramount+ subscription service (formerly called CBS All Access).
Peacock also has deals in place for movies from Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Focus Features, Illumination, Warner Bros., and Blumhouse, with titles ranging from “The Bourne Identity” and “The Matrix” to “Jurassic Park” and “The Godfather” trilogy.
With the free tier, you miss out on live sports events and original Peacock programming such as “Brave New World,” “Psych 2: Lassie Come Home,” and “The Capture.”
The most recent news is that Peacock has ordered a series, “Dan Brown’s Langdon,” based on the author Brown’s best-selling thriller novel “The Lost Symbol,” which follows the early adventures of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon.
You can access Peacock through Comcast’s Xfinity X1 cable and Flex streaming platforms, as well as on Apple devices (Apple TV and Apple TV 4K, iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch); Google Android TVs, phones, tablets, and Chromecast; Roku streaming players; and LG and Vizio smart TVs. The service is also available on Xbox and Sony PlayStation game consoles. But it’s not on Amazon Fire TV devices.