Comcast is doubling down on positioning Peacock to become a bigger contender in the world of streaming services. The company plans to spend $3 billion on content for Peacock in 2022, twice as much as it spent last year.
Comcast is “finalizing a plan that would drastically change its partnership with Hulu” by pulling NBCUniversal content from Hulu and relocating it to Peacock, according to a report from Wall Street Journal, significantly bolstering the latter’s content library and appeal. When the deal closes, NBC shows like ‘The Voice’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’ would no longer be available the next day on Hulu, but would move exclusively to Peacock.
The deal makes a lot of sense seeing as Peacock is owned by NBC, but Hulu has long been known for airing TV shows the next day. Peacock has already been pulling NBC content for itself from other streaming services, like The Office leaving Netflix.
Comcast is hoping big events like the 2022 Beijing Olympics and Super Bowl LVI will bolster Peacock’s subscribers, as growing its base it the company’s main goal this year. Starting this year, NBCUniversal is also making most Universal movies available for streaming on Peacock as soon as 45 days after their theatrical release.
Peacock currently has 9 million people paying for the premium tier, with 7 million users on its free, ad-supported plan.