Hoping Peacock streams films the pandemic kept from theaters? Not so fast

Peacock, a new streaming service from Comcast’s NBCUniversal, will launch in the U.S. next week. However, if you hope to be able to stream some surprising new movies during your corona virus lockout, don’t hold your breath. peacock probably won’t deliver Hamilton-Style starts like Disney Plus – at least not soon.

“Certainly nothing in the near future,” Peacock chairman Matt Strauss said in an interview when asked whether films like Trolls World Tour or The King of Staten Island should be on Peacock soon, even if Comcast’s film studios these have brought films online in other ways.

As the Corona virus The pandemic has closed the cinemas and forced people to chat at home. The demand for films and shows that you can watch online has increased. And that has led media companies to boldly tinker with the strict rules for theatrical release, e.g. B. how long films only run in the cinemas and how fast they can offer them online. Studios owned by the same company as Peacock were among the most aggressive when it came to putting some of their movies online.

DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls World Tour was one of the first movies to test their fate in the coronavirus pandemic by renting the movie online exactly as it released in some movie theaters. The King of Staten Island from Universal followed in his footsteps weeks later. Peacock, DreamWorks Animation and Universal Pictures are owned by Comcast, which also includes focus features and TV networks such as NBC, USA, Bravo and Syfy.

The Trolls World Tour was a hit with home visitors that infuriated the theater owners because they felt excluded from the process despite a ban that virtually all theaters closed. The cinema chain AMC even vowed to ban all universal films from their screens.

But streaming services have also become more confident when it comes to bringing new films to their subscribers on large screens. Disney PlusFor example, Hamilton preferred the release of Hamilton, the filmed version of the hit Broadway musical, to stream more than a year before the planned movie date. A bump in Hamilton this weekend increased downloads of the Disney Plus mobile app in the US by 72%. And Friday, Apple TV Plus will stream Greyhound, a World War II battleship drama starring Tom Hanks after the film’s cinema plans were sunk by the virus last month.

However, Strauss said Peacock was not built as a streaming delivery arm for programming NBCUniversal like some other services.

“We didn’t call this service NBC Plus. We called it Peacock. In many ways it was intended – yes, pay homage to NBCUniversal, but don’t limit yourself to NBCUniversal content,” said Strauss.

A larger library, a free trial

Instead, Peacock has expanded its work license content, said Strauss. The corona virus disrupted the production of many of its original shows and derailed Peacock’s plans to start in parallel with the Summer Olympics, which are now being delayed until next year. But dealmaking hasn’t slowed down, he said.

Peacock will have more than 20,000 hours of program available at launch, Strauss said after the company announced in January that it would offer approximately 15,000 hours. Peacock announced contracts with A + E and ViacomCBS to stream some of their programs, for example. (Note: ViacomCBS is the parent company of CNET.)

The service also offers a seven-day free trial that allows everyone to try Peacock’s premium tiers, which allow you to view the full catalog.

Peacock will launch on July 15 with three service levels: a limited free tier with advertising that blocks part of the library, and two premium tiers, which are essentially all-access passes for all services. A premium tier of advertising costs $ 5 a month or $ 50 a year, and you can upgrade to an ad-free version for $ 10 a month or $ 100 a year.

However, Peacock wants its premium service to be bundled with other video subscriptions that you may already have. The company is still in active talks about businesses like the one it has already concluded with Comcast, its parent company, and Cox Communications so that its cable customers can access Peacock Premium at no additional cost.

It’s not the first Peacock benefit Comcast customers enjoy. Customers of Comcast’s Xcastity cable video service and Flex streaming video service have been watching a sneak peek version of Peacock since April.

Strauss was impressed by the early response from these Comcast customers, he said. Within 60 days of Peacock’s soft launch for Comcast customers, Peacock exceeded the internal goals that should be achieved by December – metrics such as time spent per user, frequency of returning to the app, or the number of videos they hit. Peacock “could have a flash of lightning in a bottle,” said Strauss, but declined to provide certain numbers for any of these metrics.

Peacock also remains a mother on other details.

Movies disturbed by viruses will not appear on Peacock in the near future, but the Trolls World Tour will at least stream on Peacock at some point. Peacock just won’t say when. The time when the films Fast and the Furious, a franchise company with its own popular fan base, comes to Peacock is also initially a mystery.

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