Peacock is upping its game, announcing that it is going to live stream all NBC and local NBC TV station programming by the end of November to select Peacock subscribers. With this new capability, the streaming service will have something unique in comparison to many of the other most popular streaming services.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news, revealing that starting November 30, all 210 local NBC affiliates across the US will stream their programming live on Peacock (some markets may launch sooner). This includes the affiliates’ local news and other localized programming, as well as NBC’s primetime lineup of shows, like Law & Order: SVU, New Amsterdam and Lopez vs Lopez. That’s a boost, as previously the latest episodes were only available to stream on Peacock the day after they aired.
Peacock had already been streaming live sports, including Sunday Night Football, and other select programs like Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show. But now, a live stream of a subscriber’s local NBC station is going to be available at any time of the day in addition to Peacock originals and on-demand content.
However, if you want to access that live stream, you must be a Peacock Premium Plus subscriber, the most expensive subscription tier of Peacock, costing $9.99 per month (though it is ad-free for on-demand and original Peacock titles).
"With Peacock’s local affiliate livestream, our subscribers are getting the unique combination of the ad-free on-demand content they love with the local news and NBC programming that is already part of their daily life," said Kelly Campbell, president of Peacock and Direct-to-Consumer, NBCUniversal. "NBC affiliates have long been an integral part of local communities, and we look forward to being another point of connection and engagement for those communities across the country."
With Peacock often compared to the likes of Netflix, HBO Max, Disney Plus and others, this gives the NBCUniversal-owned service something rare, as Paramount Plus is the only other on-demand streaming service that offers live streams of local TV (CBS in this case). Live TV streaming services like FuboTV, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV and YouTube TV do as well, but they are in their own genre of streaming services.
This is another recent upgrade that Peacock has announced. It previously shared it is adding loads of Hallmark movies and shows, including many of the network's popular holiday movies.
