If you've lost count of the number of video streaming services out there, you're not alone. NBCUniversal's Peacock was one of the last remaining services to launch from the traditional media giants. Peacock bundles NBC network shows, original series, popular movies, and some live sports. It no longer offers a free tier to new users, a plan that was one of the service's greatest draws. Still, Peacock's reasonable base tier offers a fantastic mainstream library and supports full HD streams, which makes it an Editors' Choice winner for low-cost video streaming.
What Can You Watch on Peacock?
Peacock claims it has more than 20,000 hours of programming. Starting with on-demand content, Peacock is home to 30 Rock, Cheers, Frasier, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, The King of Queens, The Office, and Parks and Recreation, as well as other currently running NBC shows like Chicago Fire, Law & Order: SVU, and Young Rock. Subscribers can watch those episodes on the same day that the programs air.
Other shows on Peacock did not originally air on NBC. Examples include Battlestar Galactica, Chrisley Knows Best, Downton Abbey, Eureka, Everybody Loves Raymond, House, Monk, Psych, Project Blue Book, Bravo's entire Real Housewives universe, and Warehouse 13. Charmed, Everybody Hates Chris, Ray Donovan, The Affair, The Game, and Undercover Boss are also available courtesy of a deal with ViacomCBS.
Some of the shows on Peacock are currently available on other streaming services, but once those streaming rights expire, we expect NBC to be the exclusive place to stream the network's shows. Notably missing from Peacock, however, are arguably two of the network's biggest shows: Friends and Seinfeld. Friends found a home on Max and Seinfeld is currently on Netflix.
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Peacock has some original shows, too, and their quality has steadily grown. The list of originals includes A.P. Bio, a comedy about a Harvard professor moving back to Ohio to work as a high school teacher; Brave New World, a utopian drama based on the popular book; Intelligence, a comedy series about government intelligence agencies; a Saved by the Bell remake; and Save Me, a drama about a father's quest to find his missing daughter. Peacock also lists crime-thriller The Capture, as an original, though it has already existed on BBC for a full season. Arguably its buzziest recent shows include the gritty Bel-Air reboot, the bizarre true crime doc Paul T. Goldman, and Poker Face from mystery master Rian Johnson.
It has longer-form originals, too. Anthony, a fictionalized account of what Anthony Walker's future might have been had he not been murdered in an unprovoked racist attack; In Deep with Ryan Lochte, which explores the Olympian's scandals and career; a sequel to the original Psych movie called Psych 2: Lassie Come Home; and Speedways, a documentary on racing tracks narrated by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Plus, there are new family-friendly cartoons, including Cleopatra in Space, Curious George, and Where's Waldo?.
Producing high-quality original shows is no easy task. Although Netflix and Prime Video seem to launch new shows every other week, Hulu and Paramount+ struggle to match those releases' pace and track record. Apple TV+ still lags behind the competition in terms of the number of original series it offers.
NBCUniversal's parent company, Comcast, owns several movie studios, including DreamWorks Animation, Focus Features, Illumination, and Universal Pictures. You'll find The Super Mario Bros. Movie here. However, many movies have disappeared since our initial Peacock review.
The Bourne, Jurassic Park, and Matrix flicks are currently available to all subscribers, but in the past, some of those films were restricted to higher tiers. Likewise, some Harry Potter films are available to everyone, but later series entries require higher-level accounts. Popular movies on the service include Being John Malkovich, Bridesmaids, Children of Men, Frost/Nixon, Inside Man, October Sky, The Hurt Locker, and Traffic. Many of the classic movies that were available on Peacock when it launched are now gone. Other movie streaming services, including Criterion Channel and Mubi, offer a far broader lineup of classic, indie, and international films.
Peacock's biggest opportunity for differentiation is its content from the broadcast NBC channels. For instance, you get episodes from top NBC shows such as Dateline, Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News, and Today. You can also watch comedy, news, sports, and entertainment clips and highlights from across NBCUniversal's channels, which are very similar to the clips-based channels on Pluto TV and Xumo. A few channels, including NBC News Now and Sky News, run throughout the day, so you can stay caught up on the headlines. Others are dedicated to specific NBC shows, such as Saturday Night Live or Late Night with Seth Myers.
What Sports Are on Peacock?
Live sports is a big Peacock draw. For instance, subscribers can watch every Sunday Night Football game this season, plus the Super Bowl. That coverage earns it a spot in our roundup of the best NFL streaming services. Additionally, Peacock has the rights to live Premier League matches, plus replays for every game. Peacock also added substantial IndyCar coverage, is the home of World Wrestling Entertainment (including pay-per-view events), and aired NHL Stanley Cup Final games this year. Rounding out the service's sports coverage are some skating, skiing, and supercross events. Peacock is also one of the best ways to stream the Olympics, thanks to its new multiview features. Note that almost all of Peacock's live sports coverage is restricted to paid subscribers.
Paramount+ also bundles live local news and sports coverage into its streaming service (including local-market NFL games that air on CBS on Sunday afternoons). Other primarily on-demand services have increasingly embraced live sports, too. Prime Video, for example, is the exclusive broadcaster of Thursday Night Football games (it streams WNBA games, too). Although these options are not necessarily the best sports streaming services, this extra content adds substantial value.
How Much Does Peacock Cost?
Peacock offers two pricing tiers: a $7.99-per-month Premium tier with on-demand, ad-supported programs (and live sports); and an $13.99-per-month Premium Plus tier with the full library of content (without ads). Note that one of Peacock's support pages explains that some content will contain ads even for Premium Plus subscribers.
Peacock no longer offers its free tier to new subscribers, but existing free subscribers don't need to pay to maintain access (at least not yet). You can sign up for a free, seven-day trial of the paid tier. However, don't expect that trial to stick around forever; Disney+ and Netflix no longer offer free trials. Peacock was undoubtedly the most mainstream free video streaming service we've reviewed, with more instantly recognizable titles than Crackle, for instance. It also didn't have the streaming resolution limitations of those two services. So we're sad to see that option go.
That said, Peacock's $7.99-per-month option is affordable (even with the slight price increase), and unlike Netflix's cheap $6.99-per-month ad-supported tier, Peacock's viewers won't miss out on content. This tier costs more than Paramount+'s ad-supported plan ($5.99 per month), but matches Hulu's equivalent $7.99-per-month option. Peacock's Premium Plus price falls in the middle of the price range of the other premium services we've reviewed. Disney+ and Prime Video are both cheaper, at $7.99 and $8.99 per month, respectively. Netflix's Standard Plan is $15.49 per month, and Max is $16.99 per month (though it now offers an ad-supported and feature-limited plan for $9.99 per month). Dedicated movie streaming services The Criterion Channel and Mubi are $10.99 per month and $14.99 per month, respectively.
In addition to watching Peacock via a web browser, you can also download dedicated apps on mobile platforms (Android and iOS), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku), and gaming consoles (Xbox One and Series X|S; PlayStation 4 and 5). Peacock recently added support for the entire Fire TV lineup.
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Peacock's Web Interface
We tested Peacock on the Firefox browser on a Windows 10 desktop. Peacock's web interface has a clean design with a black, yellow, gray, and white color scheme. NBC Peacock's logo is so colorful that we had expected more dramatic splashes of color throughout. However, the layout is simple to navigate, and we didn't experience any performance issues in testing. We did notice that the top navigation bar is not always present in the interface, which means that you sometimes have to click the back arrow several times to get back to one of the main sections.
Peacock's interface is split into two main sections—Channels and Browse—with a top menu bar for navigation. The upper-right section also has a search bar and an icon for your account profile. The search tool can only find items by title, so you can't search by cast members, directors, or producers, for example. The Account settings page lets you update your profile and payment details, set up parental controls, customize subtitles, and opt out of email notifications. We appreciate the questions and answers about peacocks (the actual bird) in the help section.
The Channels section is where you can find live sports, news streams, and clips-based channels from various Comcast properties. Browse is where all of the service's on-demand content lives. The Channels interface is just a guide with columns for what's currently playing and what's set to play next. There's no way to prioritize your favorite channels.
The other items in the top menu are Featured, TV Shows, Movies, Kids, Sports, and Latino. All of the sections are organized similarly, with highlighted content in a top slider and various curated horizontal scrolling lists running down the rest of the page. A purple feather icon in the upper left corner of a show's or movie's thumbnail means that it is for Premium subscribers only.
To start watching a show or movie, click on a thumbnail and press the Watch Now button. Unlike with most of its competitors, you can't quickly add items to a watchlist or begin playback by just hovering over the title; both buttons are only accessible on the show's or movie's detail page. The Watchlist is also only available from the Featured section in the interface. We would prefer a dedicated icon next to the profile and search tools.
On a movie's detail page, you can see the film's IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes rating, genre, runtime, release year, parental rating, principal cast members, and a brief description. Annoyingly, the trailer auto-plays as soon as you arrive on the page, and we couldn't find a way to pause or otherwise disable the preview (modern trailers reveal way too much of a movie's plot). At the bottom of the page, Peacock includes a section for films you may also like, along with any related clips, which, in the case of most movies, is just the trailer. The experience is essentially the same for TV shows, except for the Episodes selector menu. Unfortunately, you can't click on the show's genre or cast members to see other shows that fit that mold or include those actors and actresses, which would improve Peacock's discoverability.
There's no place to add a review and rating on a show or movie's detail page. Shudder, Mubi, Sundance Now, and Prime Video all allow users to add their thoughts on what they watch. Other services, including Apple TV+, Crackle, and Mubi, do a better job of listing more detailed information about their content.
Peacock's Mobile Apps
We installed Peacock on an Android phone and had no issues signing in to our test account. The app resembles the now-defunct Quibi a bit, with a primarily vertical presentation of elements. We noticed slight lag when moving between app screens and launching streams.
Navigation is accomplished via a bottom menu with Channels, Trending, and Browse sections. You can reach your profile settings via a top-right icon (only on the Trending page), while the search bar lives in the screen's bottom-left corner. In the profile section, you can view but not edit your plan information and restrict playback to Wi-Fi connections. Unfortunately, there are no options for adjusting how subtitles appear.
Both the Channels and Browse sections operate identically to their web counterparts. The Trending section is just a list of clips and trailers. Oddly, the Watchlist is only available via an overflow menu in the Now Playing screen. It should be more prominent in the mobile interface.
Peacock now supports offline downloads on mobile devices, but only for Premium Plus subscribers. We would prefer that subscribers to the paid Premium tier also get this capability. Netflix and Prime Video both support this feature without requiring you to pay for a more expensive plan.
Peacock's Playback Experience
Peacock's playback screen on the web has all the expected features. In addition to the standard playback and volume tools, there are 10-second rewind and fast-forward buttons, a subtitles toggle, a More Episodes selector (for TV shows), and an info button for viewing a brief description of the programming. The mobile app's playback screen retains the same controls and the aforementioned overflow menu, which gives you quick access to the More Episodes, Continue Watching, and Watchlist sections.
No other video streaming service we've reviewed thus far matches the utility of Prime Video's IMDb-powered X-Ray sidebar, which lists cast members in the current scene, any music tracks, plus tidbits such as continuity goofs and random trivia.
NBC specifies a maximum of three simultaneous streams per account. BritBox is currently the most generous in terms of simultaneous streams, with support for five concurrent streams. Other services, such as Disney+ and Max, allow three simultaneous streams. Peacock, like Max, does not currently support 4K HDR streaming. Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video all offer this option.
Peacock's ad experience isn't unreasonable (the service says ads typically play before and during a show), though we still wish there weren't any in the paid tier. When we tried streaming with all our typical privacy extensions enabled, we did see a pop-up telling me to disable our ad-blocker. However, once we dismissed that message, the stream started without issue. In fact, we didn't see a single ad during playback in our experience on the desktop. We saw ads on the mobile app, however. Some shows had more ads than others. For instance, we had to watch 2 minutes and 45 seconds worth of ads for a 21-minute episode of Parks and Recreation, but less than a minute's worth of ads for an episode of 30 Rock. Discovery+ has a similar ad experience in its entry-level tier.
Ad breaks during live sports are not filled with regular ads; for the Premier League match we watched, NBC stretched out supplemental programming to fill the blocks. The clips-based channels didn't seem to show traditional ads either. When the Office Shorts channel ended a programming block, we only saw Peacock's We'll Be Right Back banner.
Max, Hulu, and Paramount+'s cheapest paid tiers have ads, too. The ad experience on free services, such as Editors' Choice pick Tubi, is far worse, assuming you don't find a way to block those ads from playing with various tracking- and ad-blocking extensions.
We tried watching The Bourne Identity on a desktop web browser over an Ethernet connection (200Mbps) and, as anticipated, encountered no issues with buffering streams or laggy audio.
For more on streaming, check out five reasons why you may want to ditch your video subscription and keep cable; read how streaming has ushered in a new trash TV golden age; and learn why companies must preserve their streaming catalogs. Finally, check out our recommended video streaming guides if you don't know what to watch.
Accessibility and Parental Controls in Peacock
You can't customize Peacock's subtitles directly from the video player. To change the appearance of these captions, you need to head to the settings on the desktop section. There, you can adjust the text size; change the color of the font, shadow, background, and window; and select a new text style. Those options are standard. However, the Audio Description Project found only 16 titles that supported audio descriptions at its last count. Apple TV+, Prime Video, and Netflix all offer far broader support for this accessibility feature, which audibly narrates scene changes and character actions that are not easily discernible from dialog alone.
Peacock parental control tools have improved. In the Account Settings section, you can create a four-digit pin that Peacock will require you to provide whenever you (or your kid) watch something at the selected parental rating or above. Peacock now lets you create up to six profiles per account, which is impressive. Although you can't specify custom restrictions per profile, you can designate a profile as a Kids account (only shows content with TVY, TVY7, TVY7-FV, TVG, G, TVPG, and PG ratings).
This setup is fine for families with younger kids, but it's not ideal for parents of older kids. For instance, if a parent wants to let their kid watch movies rated up to PG-13, they have to apply that restriction to all regular profile users. As a result, parents would need to input the PIN every time to watch anything with a higher rating.
Disney+, Max, and Netflix are among the best video streaming services for parents looking to limit what their children can watch. These services support multiple viewing profiles and allow you to set content restrictions for each.
Can You Use a VPN With Peacock?
A VPN is an essential tool for protecting your privacy online from third-party threats. VPNs are also useful in cases where you want to spoof your location online. This poses a problem specifically to video streaming services, as some content may only be intended for specific regions. As such, many video streaming services simply block VPN traffic entirely.
We tried streaming some of Peacock's on-demand content over a US-based Mullvad VPN server. On most occasions, Peacock popped up a message that explained that accessing the service via a VPN is restricted. However, we were able to stream over a VPN connection on other attempts.
Even if you find that all the video streaming services you subscribe to work with your VPN for now, know that these services are always looking for new ways to block VPN traffic. In any case, you can always disable your VPN when streaming and then turn it back on afterward.
Verdict: Low Cost, Big Features
NBC's reasonably priced Peacock video streaming service combines a large and growing selection of fan-favorite shows and movies with live news and sports. Its substantive library and support for HD content help it maintain our Editors' Choice award for affordable streaming services. Our top pick for on-demand video streaming services is Netflix because of its unmatched collection of popular original titles. Tubi is our top free choice with its extensive, no-cost catalog. For streaming live TV, we recommend Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.
Peacock lets you stream popular NBC TV shows, many notable movies, and the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics with its surprisingly capable and robust base tier.
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