Comcast plans streaming bundle with Netflix, Apple TV+

Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, is planning to offer its streaming service Peacock in a bundle with Netflix and Apple TV+, Brian Roberts, the company’s CEO, said at an investor conference Tuesday.

Called StreamSaver, the bundle will be sold at a deep discount compared with subscribing to all three services separately, Roberts said. He didn’t specify a price for the service, which is expected to debut later this month.

“We’ve been bundling video successfully and creatively for 60 years,” Roberts said. “This is the latest iteration of that. And

I think this will be a pretty compelling package.”

Over the past year, several entertainment companies have joined forces to entice customers who are weary of signing up and paying for numerous individual streaming services.

Earlier this year, Warner Bros. Discovery, Fox and Disney announced that they were teaming up to offer a streaming service with games from the NBA and the NFL. Last week, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery said that they would bundle their streaming services, selling users a package that included Disney+, Hulu and Max.

Comcast has long offered its users a menu of streaming services on Xfinity, its package of services that includes cable television and broadband internet. For years, the company has offered services like Netflix and Apple TV+ as add-ons to its existing television bundle, acting as a vendor for those companies. This is the first time that Comcast has offered both services as part of a discounted bundle.

Comcast, which has millions of broadband and cable television customers across the United States, has different incentives to bundle streaming services together than many of its competitors have. If Comcast can give its customers additional reasons to stick with the company, or persuade them to pay for more features through Xfinity, the effort to bundle services will have been worth it.

Many other internet providers have sold bundles that include streaming services. When Disney+ launched, Verizon offered a promotional bundle with that service. When the short-lived, short-form streaming service Quibi launched, T-Mobile offered to bundle its wireless offering with that service.

Comcast has been willing to spend big to gain a foothold in the competitive video streaming business. Peacock, which launched in 2020, lost $2.7 billion last year, Comcast said in a filing, but paying subscribers increased to 31 million. The company has said that Peacock’s losses were narrowing as the service matured.