NBC’s Peacock Has Finally Set a Launch Date

We finally know what’s ahead for NBC’s Peacock. During an investor day for the network hosted at NBC’s iconic home at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Peacock was announced to launch on April 15 for Comcast’s Xfinity TV and Flex broadband customers. The streaming service will then debut nationally on July 15.

The investor day also confirmed that Peacock will offer a tiered price system. The lowest option will be Peacock Free, which will be ad-supported and will include next day access to current seasons of freshman shows, complete classic series, movies, select daily news and sports programming including the Olympics, Spanish-language content, certain episodes of Peacock originals, and curated Peacock streaming genre channels. The next tier will be for Comcast Xfinity TV, Cox, and internet subscribers, who will have access to Peacock with ads for no additional charge. It’s expected that an ad-free Peacock bundling option will be made available in the following months. And finally Peacock Premium will be available for $5 a month with ads and $10 a month for ad-free. These versions will offer all of Peacock’s offerings.

At launch NBCU’s streaming service will have over 15,000 hours of content available. That will include shows that originally premiered on NBC, Bravo, USA, and Syfy. But it’s one show in particular that has helped make the upcoming streaming service alluring to fans. Prior to its launch NBCU announced that Peacock would be the exclusive home for The Office starting in 2021. There have even been rumors of an Office reboot for the service.

That’s far from the only NBCU show that will be available on Peacock. On the NBC side Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cheers, Frasier, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, Saturday Night Live, Superstore, and Will & Grace will be available to stream. From USA Chrisley Knows Best, Covert Affairs, Monk, Psych, and Royal Pains will be available. Peacock will also feature A&E’s Bates Motel, E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Bravo’s The Real Housewives and Top Chef, as well as Battlestar Galactica, Downton Abbey, Everyone Loves Raymond, House, King of Queens, Married… with Children, Two and a Half Men, and Yellowstone.

Additionally two of NBC’s late night shows, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, will stream on Peacock hours before they air on NBC. Starting in July, the two talk shows are set to stream on Peacock at 8/7c p.m. and 9/8c p.m. respectively. They will then air on NBC three-and-a-half hours later.

The streaming service has also announced 18 originals, ranging from comedies and high concept sci-fi dramas to docuseries and spinoff movies for beloved series. This doesn’t include Peacock’s multiyear exclusive deal with Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud Network, which will include a first look deal and a standup special from Hart. Here’s the full list of announced Peacock originals:

• The Adventure Zone, an animated comedy based on the McElroy family’s Dungeons &  Dragons podcast
• Angelyne, a limited series drama about the L.A. billboard diva starring and from Shameless‘ Emmy Rossum and Mr. Robot‘s Sam Esmail
• A.P. Bio Season 3, which is coming to Peacock after being moved from NBC
• Battlestar Galactica, a straight-to-series reboot of the beloved sci-fi series from Sam Esmail set to be released in 2020
• Brave New World, a sci-fi dystopian drama from Aldous Huxley and starring Demi Moore about a utopian society that has achieved peace through prohibiting monogamy, privacy, money, family, and history
• Division One, a coming-of-age comedy about an underdog women’s collegiate soccer team produced by Amy Poehler
• Dr. Death, an upcoming crime drama based on the podcast of the same name starring Alec Baldwin, Jamie Dornan, and Christian Slater about a sinister doctor and the people who try to stop him
• Expecting, a comedy from Mindy Kaling about a middle-aged music manager who asks her best friend Jonathan to be her sperm donor
• Girls5Eva, from Tina Fey this new comedy will follow a one-hit wonder girls group from the ’90s who reunite to give their musical dreams one last shot
• Hatching Twitter, the first installment of an anthology series about the rise of tech companies
• The Kids Tonight Show, a spinoff of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that will be hosted by Fallon
• One of Us Is Lying, a young adult mystery drama based on the novel of the same name about five teenagers who enter detention but only four make it out alive
• Rutherford Falls, a comedy from Sierra Teller Ornelas and Mike Schur and starring Ed Helms about a small town local legend who fights moving a historic statue
• Straight Talk, a pilot from Rashida Jones and Kara Brown starring Jada Pickett Smith
• The Amber Ruffin Show, a late-night talk show hosted by Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Amber Ruffin
• Untitled Punky Brewster reboot, which will follow Soleil Moon Frye’s character as a single mother of three trying to get her life back on track who meets a young girl much like her younger self
• Untitled Real Housewives spin-off
• Untitled Saved by the Bell reboot, which will star Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley, Tiffani Thiessen, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar
• Who Wrote That?, a docuseries that gives a behind-the-scenes look at Saturday Night Live‘s most important writers from Lorne Michaels, Andy Breckman, and Susan Morrison
• Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, Psych‘s second movie which will star James Roday, Dulé Hill, Timothy Omundson, Maggie Lawson, Jimmi Simpson, and Joel McHale

At Peacock’s price point it will be comparable to its streaming competitors. Also Peacock will be made available for free to Comcast’s broadband customers. Currently the two biggest streaming platforms, Netflix and Hulu, cost $8.99/month and $5.99/month for their most basic plans. Amazon’s Prime Video costs $8.99/month, and HBO NOW costs $14.99/month. And the recently launched Apple TV+ and Disney+ cost $4.99/month and $6.99/month.