NBCUniversal announced Tuesday that its new streaming service will be called Peacock — and that it will come with a colorful library of content.
The service, which is set to roll out in April of 2020, will launch with over 15,000 hours of content from NBCUniversal’s shows and films, the company announced on Tuesday.
Peacock will be the exclusive streaming home for popular sitcoms like “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation.” Blockbusters from Universal Pictures such as movies in the “Fast & Furious” series and reboots of classic series like “Saved by the Bell” and “Battlestar Galactica” will also be included in the service, the company said.
NBCUniversal did not disclose how much Peacock would cost, but did say that pricing will be announced closer to launch. The service will be both advertising and subscription supported.
“The name Peacock pays homage to the quality content that audiences have come to expect from NBCUniversal,” Bonnie Hammer, NBCUniversal’s chairman of direct-to-consumer and digital enterprises, said in a statement. “Peacock will be the go-to place for both the timely and timeless.”
Peacock joins a growing list of upcoming streaming services from big media companies looking to compete with Netflix. That list includes Disney’s Disney+ and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max as well as Apple’s Apple TV+. (CNN is owned by WarnerMedia.)
Peacock will offer classic TV series like “30 Rock,” “Cheers,” “Frasier,” and every season of “Saturday Night Live.” NBCUniversal had also announced in June that it would be pulling “The Office” from Netflix starting in 2021. The move is a blow to Netflix, on which “The Office” has been a viewership juggernaut.
Peacock will host a slate of original programming as well, including a crime series called “Dr. Death,” which stars Alec Baldwin, and “Brave New World,” a series starring Demi Moore based on Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel. Universal Pictures, Focus Features and DreamWorks Animation will also create original films for the series.
There’s been a flurry of news in the streaming world over the past week. J.J. Abrams struck a wide-ranging production deal with WarnerMedia on Thursday, Netflix announced that it will be the exclusive global streaming home to “Seinfeld” on Monday and WarnerMedia announced that it had locked down the steaming rights to “The Big Bang Theory” on Tuesday.
