Peacock — the streaming service owned by NBCUniversal — is increasing its prices in August. Peacock Premium keeps advertising and is going from $5 a month to $6 a month. The (mostly) ad-free Peacock Premium Plus is going from $10 a month to $12 a month.
The new rates take effect immediately for new subscribers, and August 17 for anyone already subscribed. Peacock is said to be alerting customers, and the change also has been made apparent on Peacock account pages.
The increase isn’t all that much of a surprise given that all streaming services raise their rates over time. Peacock ended the first quarter of 2023 with revenue up 45%, with nearly 22 million paid subscribers, an increase of 60% or so. That said, Peacock itself lost some $704 million for the quarter, and execs said they expect losses for the year to be “around $3 billion, which we believe will be peak losses for Peacock and then begin to steadily improve.”
Complicating matters for Peacock, at least a little, is that it’s been the streaming home for the Paramount drama Yellowstone. (A decision that certainly continues to haunt Paramount execs.) But starting this fall, an edited version of Yellowstone will air on CBS’ broadcast networks. It won’t be the same, but it likely will be enough for at least some folks who don’t want to pony up a couple more bucks each month, or who don’t have access to the Paramount Network on cable or streaming.
In any event, get ready to pay a little more for Peacock. And as a reminder, there’s no more free tier for new users. If you want Peacock, you’re going to have to pay up. You do still get a free trial, however.
The Peacock service is available on every major streaming platform, including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, Android TV, various smart TV systems, and in a web browser.
