NBCUniversal’s Peacock finally lands on Roku, ending long standoff

By Simon Cohen September 21, 2020

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, is finally on the Roku platform starting today, ending a dispute between the two companies that had been raging since Peacock’s launch in July.

“We are excited to bring Peacock and its unrivaled catalog to millions of Americans who enjoy entertainment on their favorite Roku devices,” Maggie McLean Suniewick, president of business development and partnerships at Peacock, said in an emailed press release. “Roku customers are engaged streamers, and we know they’ll love access to a wide range of free and paid content.”

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For its part, Roku seems equally happy to be burying the hatchet. “We’re focused on delivering the kind of high-quality news and entertainment content Roku users want and love,” said Tedd Cittadine, vice president of content acquisition at Roku, “and we’re excited to welcome Peacock’s world-class programming to America’s No. 1 TV streaming platform and help NBCUniversal build a bigger fan base through our industry-leading audience development tools.”

While it’s not entirely clear what aspects of the relationship have now changed, previous reports suggested that since NBCUniversal had put a strong focus on advertising Peacock, the sharing of advertising inventory between the two platforms had been a sticking point in the negotiations.

Now that Peacock has been added to Roku, it has a wide footprint in terms of supported devices and software. The current list includes Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV 4K, and Apple TV HD; Google platforms and devices, including Android TV devices, Chromecast, and Chromecast built-in devices; Microsoft’s Xbox One family of devices, including Xbox One S and Xbox One X; Vizio SmartCast TVs; the Sony PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro; and LG Smart TVs.

That accounts for a nice percentage of the streaming world, but one player is still notably absent: Amazon’s Fire TV platform. Digital Trends reached out to Amazon’s representatives to see if the company had any updates on the addition of Peacock to Fire TV. We’ll update this post when we hear back.

The addition of Peacock to Roku helps the super-popular streaming media device company fill a hole in its lineup of services, but as of today, it still hasn’t repaired its relationship with HBO.

HBO Max, which launched earlier this year, remains unavailable to Roku users.

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