Frequent readers of this blog know that I’ve been pretty unkind to “Max” since the days when Warner Bros. was spun off and became part of Discovery. But, you might also notice that I’ve talked about Peacock several times over the years. Funny thing, though, I keep waffling back and forth. Are they good? Are they bad? Is their content overpriced, or just right? Truth is I still am not completely sure. I’ll tell you this, though, right now I’m thinking of dumping them again.
Peacock… your home for things you can get for free on Prime if you wait
Yep, that’s my biggest complaint about Peacock right now. Most of the shows and movies that are “exclusive” to the streamer end up on Prime Video just a few months later. Did I really need to shell out the ten bucks just to see Jurassic Park Dominion a little sooner? I did not. Seeing all of Peacock’s content on another streamer that I already pay for just makes me angry. There have been a few genuinely good shows and movies that haven’t made it to other services yet. I’ll admit that. If you haven’t seen Poker Face (the one with Natasha Lyonne, there are several shows and movies with that name) well it’s worth the cost of one month of Peacock. Otherwise, I feel like a fool for having paid for the service.
I feel like a double fool since Peacock (like everyone else) has raised its rates. In their case, it equates to about a 16% increase for absolutely no reason. You don’t need me to tell you that this is an unsustainable business model. The only thing that’s gone up faster and more steeply are insurance rates. And folks, that’s another whole article that doesn’t even belong on this blog.
The survival path for Peacock
I know, I said last year that their mix of free and premium content might be perfect for the post stream-boom days. I felt even better about that prediction when they offered an insane 99¢ per month deal if you paid for a year. But, a year later, even that seems like a little bit too much to charge. It’s not, of course. You can’t get anything these days for under a buck. But a price that low had its desired effect. I didn’t just pay for the low-priced plan, I upped the subscription to ad-free. And that price went up on me a couple months ago.
Here’s the thing, Peacock. Offering less for more is never a good look. You’ve been lucky because most of the ire in the streaming world has been aimed at perennial pincushion David Zaslav. But bloggers like me are getting tired of bashing Max, no matter how much it’s deserved. We’re looking around at the rest of the industry, too. Disney is raising rates and delivering a big bag of nothing. Netflix hasn’t had a hit on the level of Orange is the New Black for years. Everyone knows that Paramount+ isn’t any kind of value unless you like Yellowstone or Star Trek. You’re in good company offering poor value for the money, but that’s no excuse.
Weaker than ever
Peacock is weaker than ever. Yep, there will be more Olympic coverage next year, this time from Paris. That will probably prop Peacock up for a bit longer. But will it last past next summer? The upside of Olympics coverage is that it’s popular. The downside is it’s expensive. And expensive is something that every streamer seems to want to avoid these days.
NBC became part of the Comcast family back in 2011. The world was a different place back then, and Comcast was known principally as a cable company. Today they’d rather you think of them as an internet company. We all thought that the combination of a TV network, a movie studio, and a pay-TV provider would be unstoppable back then. People actually worried about Comcast becoming too successful. I guess that didn’t happen.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Peacock either disappear forever or turn into a purely ad-supported network like Pluto. That’s where it started, and it was only recently that the company started sunsetting its free plans. That was a mistake, and I think they might agree. Moving to purely ad-supported, and abandoning their hopes for being a premium service, might be the best move for them.
I know that I’m not likely to pay Peacock even one thin dime. I’ll just wait for stuff to hit Prime Video. And I have a feeling I’m not alone.
