Peacock Was Already Terrible, Now It’s Terrible and Expensive

As part of my role with Streaming Smarter, I check in on Peacock every so often. I’m nearly always disappointed. Now comes the news that Peacock is raising its prices by $3 on each tier. It’s a ridiculous move for a ridiculous streaming service.

I get that Comcast needs to gin up enough money to justify its $2.5 billion-per-year NBA deal. It makes sense that Peacock subscribers might take it on the chin there. But it’s not like you can opt-in to a more expensive level with basketball. It’s on the ad-supported and ad-free Peacock plans.

Perhaps as some sort of make-good, Peacock is launching a new, limited tier that costs what the ad-supported plan used to cost. But this terrible option still has ads, and only gives you NBC and Bravo shows, with a handful of library titles. You may not remember, but the old NBC app used to provide ad-supported NBC shows for free. Now we have to pay for the privilege?

Here are some of the key reasons Peacock sucks.

$10.99 to Watch Ads is Nuts

If you want access to the full Peacock lineup, you’re going to have to pay $10.99/month. That makes it more expensive than every other ad-supported on-demand streamer. That’s $4 more per month than Netflix! Even Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max are cheaper with ads, and those services offer far more content.

For that much money, Peacock needs to offer far more value.

There’s No Free Trial

Peacock used to be entirely free for its ad-supported level. Now you can’t even get a free trial to check it out. That’s beyond bogus.

You Can’t Bundle Peacock with Other Streamers

I love bundling services to save money. The HBO Max-Hulu-Disney+ bundle is a great value overall.

In some cases, I like to add streamers as “channels” in Prime Video. You can’t do that with Peacock.

Peacock just wants to be a standalone streaming service, but it hardly offers enough to be a one-and-done subscription. I don’t know anyone who only has Peacock. You’d still need at least two other streamers to have enough to watch. Services this weak should team up with others to be a more attractive value.

Peacock Originals Are Weak

I guess if you like reality shows, “Love Island” and “The Traitors” are nice. But Peacock’s Originals just don’t do it for me. People say nice things about “Bel-Air,” “Poker Face,” and “Twisted Metal,” but there’s just not enough buzz to get me hooked. Even if you like their original series, the non-reality-show titles arrive at a glacial pace.

The Library is Stale

Most Peacock viewership seems to center around old shows: “Downton Abbey,” “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Modern Family,” “Community.”

Nothing wrong with those shows, but the library gets much thinner beyond them. Some people love “Yellowstone,” but that show won’t be on Peacock forever (Paramount+ can’t wait to claw it back), and all of Taylor Sheridan’s other shows live on Paramount+.

What about classic shows? Peacock fails there, too. Sure, you can see “Columbo,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” and “Little House on the Prairie,” but where are all the great NBC-affiliate shows of the past? Peacock doesn’t have “Friends,” “Seinfeld,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Cheers,” “Frasier,” “The Golden Girls,” the original “Night Court,” “Quantum Leap,” “ER,” “Family Ties,” or “The West Wing.”

The movie selection is also pretty weak. You’ll get some (but not all) Universal films. It’s weird you can see all the “Jurassic Park” movies on Peacock but not the highest-grossing one: “Jurassic World.” Even though Universal made “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, you can only see three on Peacock.

What about Universal classics like “E.T.” and the “Back to the Future” trilogy? Nope! Not on Peacock.

Universal Doesn’t Turn Out Enough Movies Each Year

If Peacock is struggling with original series and its NBC pipeline is constrained as its parent company struggles with a linear TV strategy, the lifeblood should be original films. But Universal’s output has slowed to a trickle. In 2024, three of its movies cracked the box office top 10, but “Wicked” was the only original film – the other two were animated sequels.

“Wicked” has a sequel set for later this year, but then the well goes dry on that franchise.

In 2024, Universal released 11 films. Even if you wanted to see them all, that’s maybe one movie a month. Again, not worth the money.

Sports is Still Weak, Even With NBA

If you love basketball and the European Premier League, you’re stuck with Peacock.

But there’s no MLB or NHL. You’ll get maybe one NFL game a week – one that’s available with your antenna on NBC.

There’s a patchwork of some important college sports, but it’s far from comprehensive.

Yes, Peacock shines during the Olympics, but you can sign up for one month when the games roll around if you really want it.

You’ll Forget You Have It

Even when I’m paying for Peacock, it slips my mind. With the NBA, we’ll be reminded of it more frequently, but my kids are always going to go to Netflix or Disney+. I’m always going to check Apple TV+, Netflix, or HBO Max for the next buzzy show. I’ll hit Hulu for reruns.

Until Peacock figures out how to spin up a lot more content, it’s always going to be in the weird “junk drawer” section of my apps. Free services like Kanopy legitimately have a better library than Peacock.

Wait for a Deal…

If you really want Peacock, my advice is to wait for a deal. Because no one really pays to keep Peacock, the service offers deep discounts all the time. There’s usually a good Black Friday deal for a discounted year of the service.

I’m willing to bet Peacock comes back to the table with a deal right before the NBA season tips off. In fact, it probably raised prices so a “deal” of the old price will seem like a sale.

NBA fans may have to suck it up and suffer the higher prices during the season and some of the playoffs, but they should cancel after the final Peacock-exclusive game.

I didn’t really like Peacock when it was free. Now I loathe it, especially at a higher price point.