NBCUniversal’s Peacock Hits 33 Million Subscribers

NBCUniversal’s streaming service didn’t get “The Office” until January

Saved by the Bell - Season 1
Photo by: Trae Patton/Peacock

More than 33 million people have signed up for Peacock to date, NBCUniversal parent company Comcast revealed Thursday.

That’s up from the 26 million subscribers that NBCU CEO Jeff Shell said the the new streaming service had reached on Dec. 8. It’s also well ahead of previous targets as Comcast had previously projected Peacock would have up to 35 million subscribers by the end of 2024.

To give an idea of Peacock’s continued growth, in late October, Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts revealed the platform was nearing 22 million sign-ups. Prior to that update, in mid-September, Comcast said the platform had just topped 15 million sign-ups after hitting 10 million sign-ups at the end of July.

The ad-supported service first became available to Comcast and Cox customers on April 15, three months before its full launch on July 15. Unlike HBO Max, Peacock is still not available on Amazon Fire TV devices, a huge player in the streaming world.

Peacock, which offers originals like the “Saved by the Bell” reboot (pictured above) and library content like “The Office” (which began streaming on the service on Jan. 1) and “30 Rock,” is available in two tiers, one for free and one with two different levels of fees.

The free option, called Peacock Free, includes next-day access to current seasons of freshman broadcast series on NBC, as well as library content like “Parks & Recreation” and curated daily news and sports programming. As for Peacock originals, this option only includes “select” episodes as well as access to what Peacock is calling “streaming genre channels” like “SNL Vault,” “Family Movie Night” and “Olympic Profiles.”

The second tier, called Peacock Premium, is available for no extra charge to Comcast and Cox subscribers. For everyone else, it cost $4.99 a month for an ad-supported option, or $9.99 a month to have no ads. The Premium tier features everything on the Free option but includes all Peacock Originals, early access to late-night series like “Tonight Show” and “Late Night” and more sports including Premier League soccer and, as of a few days ago, WWE Network.

Comcast reported the Peacock sign-ups update Thursday as it revealed its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 earnings, which you can read more about here.

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