NBC’s ‘Peacock’ service to join streaming options

Much of the programming will be free, with pay versions

NEW YORK — NBCUniversal is launching a new streaming service that will have a large part available for free, an approach it hopes will resonate with people who aren’t interested in traditional TV.

The service, Peacock, will debut April 15 for customers of Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company. Everyone else will get it July 15, just before the Olympics.

There’s a free version, a $5-a-month version with lots more stuff and a $10 option to remove ads. The prices are in line with what many rival services charge. The $5 version will be free for 24 million households that get TV subscriptions through Cox, or either TV or internet through Comcast. Those customers can pay $5 a month to remove ads.

NBCUniversal hopes to position Peacock as broader than the other major streaming services already out there. It will soon offer news, sports and reality TV along with shows and movies — just like a traditional broadcast TV network, but with fewer ads, at five minutes an hour.

“It’s a smart move for them to try to pivot into a new space that hasn’t really been tapped into yet,” said Sarah Henschel, a media analyst for IHS Markit.

Peacock’s stated ambitions for subscribers are, for now, smaller than those of rival Disney, however. And not everything is immediately going to Peacock. NBCUniversal will continue to send shows and movies it makes to other companies too.

The influx of new streaming services from the country’s biggest tech and entertainment companies comes as people increasingly turn away from watching live network TV and cut their cable subscriptions. These new offerings model themselves on Netflix: a catalog of movies and TV shows available whenever and wherever people want to watch, for a monthly fee. They’ll have to fight for consumers’ attention and money.

All the costs for streaming services add up, and surveys suggest people don’t want to subscribe to all of them, especially with many existing streaming options already, including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu. That’s why NBCUniversal is emphasizing that Peacock comes with a free option. Prices for rivals range from $5 a month (Apple TV Plus and Quibi with ads) to $15 (HBO Max). Netflix’s most popular plan costs $13.

Hulu, in which Comcast is a silent minority owner for a few more years, also has ad and ad-free options, as will Quibi, an upcoming short-video streaming service that’s backed by Hollywood studios. Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus and the upcoming HBO Max from AT&T’s Warner Media don’t have ads at all. None of them has a free option the way Peacock will.

Peacock will have 15,000 hours of programming, including original content, stuff from the NBC library like “The Office,” which leaves Netflix for Peacock in 2021, and shows from other studios, too, including “Two and a Half Men.”

For TV shows in their first season, Peacock will let viewers watch episodes for free the day after they air. For shows that have been on longer, viewers will need to pay.