What Shows Peacock Wants to Buy Now
Plus: The execs you need to know there with power, influence & taste
I write about TV from L.A. My Summer Sellers’ Guide already revealed what Apple TV+, Amazon and HBO & HBO Max want to buy, and I reported on Gen X Hollywood’s career crisis and the boom in microdramas. I’m at elaine@theankler.com
Happy Monday, Series Business readers — after a detour to contemplate the career crisis point of Gen Xers in Hollywood, I’m back this week with my next installment of the Summer Sellers’ Guide, created for writers and producers sharpening their pitches and need to know who’s buying what.
I’ve sussed out the appetites over at Apple TV+, Amazon, HBO and HBO Max, and now today, it’s Peacock in the spotlight. The streaming sister of Big Three broadcaster NBC, Peacock has amassed more than 41 million subscribers since it launched five years ago — not anywhere Netflix’s 200 million-plus subs, but nothing to sneeze at either. As my colleague Sean McNulty noted in The Wakeup, much of that growth stemmed from Comcast’s new agreement with Charter to offer Peacock for free to customers of the Spectrum cable TV bundle, and yeah, Peacock still hasn’t reached profitability.
So the streaming service has a lot to contend with in the battle to be a staple platform for U.S. households, and its recent price increase will test the consumer appetite. As recently as June, would-be subscribers could jump on dirt-cheap offers to pay only $20 to $25 for an entire year of Peacock. As of July 23, however, parent company Comcast is charging $3 more per month at a new rate of $10.99 for the ad tier — significantly higher than Netflix’s $7.99-a-month ad tier. Peacock’s ad-free tier will cost $16.99. There’s now also an option called Peacock Select ($7.99) that does not include Peacock original programming or sports but includes current-season and library programming for NBC and Bravo.
This price hike anticipates the return of the NBA to NBC in the fall, for which NBCU is shelling out $2.5 billion a year. Starting in October, Peacock will exclusively stream live NBA games on Mondays, and both NBC and Peacock will air regional doubleheader games on Tuesdays. (Peacock will also stream NBA coverage on certain Sundays starting in January.) NBCU has invested heavily in sports, and in addition to broadcasting and streaming the Olympics (the Milan Cortina winter games kick off Feb. 6), it also has NFL games, including Sunday Night Football, and Premier League soccer.
The massive sports footprint means even less space these days for scripted programming at NBC — the broadcaster axed Night Court, Lopez vs. Lopez and the high-profile Suits LA ahead of the return of the NBA — which currently hosts the Dick Wolf television universe and recently renewed dramas The Hunting Party and Brilliant Minds as well as comedies Happy’s Place and St. Denis Medical. The two new comedies on its slate for the fall are Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe starrer The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, and cheerleading comedy Stumble from Jeff Astrof and Liz Astrof (like St. Denis Medical, both are single-camera shows).
Peacock, meanwhile, is home to the live-action Ted series from Seth MacFarlane — which, as I reported exclusively earlier this year, was one of the first five series to earn scribes the new streaming bonus from the WGA’s 2023 post-strike contract with the studios. (Ted is the streamer’s most-watched scripted original.) Peacock isn’t a volume player for original series in the vein of Netflix, but its execs want to “make sure they have elevated programming and stories, to make sure that they not only aren’t losing those current subscribers, but are able to gain and garner more,” says one TV rep at a major agency.
The reps I spoke to about Peacock painted a picture of a business that has momentum but also holds the purse strings pretty tight. While agents told me last fall that Peacock has “got money,” several reps from different agencies tell me the streamer now is much more focused on keeping new projects under certain budgets — you’ll find those hard numbers below.
Today I’ll give you access to:
Who's running the show at Peacock and NBC, and the rising bench of next-gen talent you need to know there now
Universal TV’s Erin Underhill’s smart tips for selling a show at Peacock — or anywhere — and what buyers want out of a meeting
What Peacock wants in drama: three genres working there now
The appetite for comedy and what reps see might change
The squeeze on budgets: I’ve got the numbers and reporting on why reductions are the new normal, even in success
Why long-running series are losing characters
What to watch for July 31: Comcast earnings may reveal how NBA rights spending is reshaping subscriber growth and strategy
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