What a streaming expert thinks you need to know about Peacock
What a streaming expert thinks you need to know about Peacock
Curious about Peacock? Find out what you need to know about the streamer before signing up!
What’s going on over at Peacock, anyway? The NBCUniversal streaming service isn’t the biggest on the market, but it punches above its weight as far as content goes…or so I’ve been led to believe. Having never signed up for Peacock before, I thought it was time to give the streamer a try after hearing so many good things and impart my first impressions on the service so anyone curious about it will have the information needed to decide for themselves if they want to sign up!
Everything new subscribers need to know about Peacock
No free trial
The first thing Peacock subscribers should know about the service is that it doesn’t offer a free trial any longer. It’s been several years since Peacock came with a free viewing period; in fact, I was the one who broke the story that Peacock was also dropping its free streaming plan in January 2023. Peacock offers ad-supported streaming starting at $8 per month, the cheapest offering it’s got.
Very diverse content lineup
One of the things that hit me immediately when opening the Peacock app for the first time was the huge breadth of content available on the streamer. It’s not just old NBC favorites like “The Office” and “Parks and Rec,” though those shows are of course available.
Looking past the library of old favorites, Peacock originals, and Universal movies reveals a huge selection of other content. For one thing, the Peacock catalog is packed with titles from the Hallmark Channel, and also comes with live streams of Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Family, and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries.
Then there’s the sports selection. Not only does Peacock offer a ton of live sporting events like NFL games, Big Ten college football and basketball, Big East basketball, Notre Dame Fighting Irish football, English Premier League soccer, and a lot more, but it features shoulder programming on-demand as well. Fans can watch clips from “Pro Football Talk,” “The Dan Patrick Show,” and other titles all on Peacock.
Another standard user interface
One thing that’s been made abundantly clear to me as I’ve continued to try new streaming services of late is that more or less, user interfaces are laid out essentially the same way across all platforms. It puts a “For You” row right at the top of its list of content carousels to give you the recommendations it thinks you’ll love the most, and the rest of the interface is packed with the usual suspects, like seasonal favorites, recently-added titles, etc.
Like Max, Peacock has a row of “Featured Brands” that let fans jump to the content segment they want to see most. I appreciated the inclusion of top sports leagues in this list; Peacock knows its customers and knows that some likely come only to stream the Premier League, or reality TV shows from Bravo. It’s a lot easier to jump to these content hubs than it is to scroll through its interface endlessly.
As with most other streamers, Peacock also sorts out content categories into tabs at the top of the screen. I’m sure wrestling fans love seeing the “WWE” tab at the top of the interface, and the “Channels” tab will let you watch the Hallmark Channel and other live networks that come with your subscription. Otherwise, you’ll find the familiar selections of “Movies,” “TV Shows,” “My Stuff,” and “Sports.”
Clicking a content tile on Peacock will bring you to the show page, instead of opening a pop-up menu or playing a trailer for that title without my asking. That’s another thing I appreciate about the streamer, though I will say that, unlike many other services, Peacock makes you go to a show page to add a title to your watchlist. That’s not a big deal for me, but it’s one layer of extra work as compared to other streamers.
How’s the ad experience?
This is another area where Peacock is a lot like other streaming services. It only carries three to five minutes of ads per hour of content, and it doesn’t force you to sit through the same commercials over and over again. Occasionally, Peacock will even present a movie with ads playing before it starts, and then not force you to watch any ads during playback of the film itself.
Peacock has had an ad-supported tier for a long time, much longer than Disney+ or Netflix. The streamer knows how to balance commercials with its content, and its experience in that regard shows.
Final thoughts
I came into Peacock with a bit of a cynical view, thinking it probably couldn’t match the expectations set by the favorable reviews I’ve gotten from users. The streamer forced me to rethink my conceptions, and pretty much lived up to the hype I’d been hearing. At $8 per month, it’s not as cheap as Netflix, but it’s got more live sports and full live streams of popular cable networks in the Hallmark Channels. It’s a pretty good value for the content you get, and I may just have to stick around.
Peacock
Peacock is a subscription video streaming service from NBCUniversal that includes original shows, blockbuster movies, and classic television series. Peacock is home to “Yellowstone,” and “The Office,” as well as original hits like “Poker Face” and “Bel-Air.” You can also watch live sports including NFL, MLB, WWE, Olympics, Premier League, NASCAR, French Open, College Football and Basketball, and PGA Tour. Premium Plus subscribers can stream their local NBC feed in all 210 markets.