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Monday, December 18, 2023

Development Alert: Peacock To Cease Transmission In The UK By Next Year, Content To Launch Elsewhere

Peacock is an international streaming service operated by Comcast which features first run series and leverages a vast library of films and series from NBCUniversal. Similar to Showmax, it also featured third party content from the likes of UK's BBC and  ITV brands.

Since it's inception, Peacock has been able to add roughly 30 million paid subscribers which is little compared to Netflix and Disney+ which we fortunate to accumulate over 100 million subscribers. It took over a year for NBCUniversal to just duplicate this in other regions.

Due to some economic factors, Peacock never got a standalone service internationally or at least not by name. In parts of Europe, it is known as SkyShowtime which forms part of a joint venture with Paramount Global which also grants consumers access to Paramount+.

In the UK, that's where things only worsened for the streamer as Peacock was "bundled' in a manner that Disney+ would bundle FX and National Geographic. With that in mind, Peacock didn't have much variety or better yet not all the content was accessible altogether as seen in the United States.

Forming a union on Sky made no sense at all, Comcast owns Sky which is basically the European counterpart of NBCUniversal. It would have seemed logical to get these two together instead of marketing it as standalone now the brand is dying down in the region.

On January 9, 2024, Peacock will officially conclude its services in the UK: the “app” on Sky’s devices will be shut down, and most of its shows on NOW are currently marked as scheduled to be removed by that date.

Some of Peacock’s programming will be redistributed across Sky’s various channels, and some shows will transition to the Hayu app.

In February 2024, MultiChoice and NBCUniversal will unveil a revamped Showmax streaming service which would feature content from Comcast's Sky and NBCUniversal and also leverage Peacock's technology in an attempt to compete with existing streamers like Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

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2 comments:

  1. They should launch or rebrand it as SkyShowtime instead of just shutting down the service in the UK

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