NBCU Peacock plans third-party add-on subscriptions
Streaming wars drift back to cable-style bundling and billing, Platform that couldn’t win on content tries to win on gatekeeping
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NBCUniversal’s Peacock is exploring a new growth strategy that looks suspiciously like the old cable-TV playbook: become the middleman. According to Business Insider, Peacock has been pitching specialty streaming services about selling “add-on subscriptions” directly inside the Peacock app, with the platform handling sign-up, billing, and—most importantly—owning the customer relationship.
The plan, described by four people familiar with the discussions, would start with a single partner later this year and likely expand only to a limited roster. Starz is among the services being considered, per two insiders cited by Business Insider, though Starz declined to comment.
The rationale is obvious. Peacock is a general-interest streamer that hasn’t managed to become a habit. Nielsen data cited by Business Insider puts Peacock at under 2% of US TV watch time, making it the second-smallest subscription streamer in Nielsen’s measured set, ahead only of Warner Bros. Discovery’s combined HBO Max and Discovery+ share. Peacock’s subscriber base—about 44 million, US-only—also trails Paramount+ (around 79 million) and sits in a different galaxy from Netflix, which has more than 325 million subscribers.
So instead of betting on another expensive tentpole, Peacock is trying to become a storefront. Amazon has already built a sizeable “Channels” business; Amazon said last year that Channels drove about 25% of US streamer sign-ups, citing Antenna data. Roku, YouTube, and smart-TV makers like Samsung and LG also run similar marketplaces.
Peacock’s pitch is that it can offer a less crowded environment and more favorable economics than Amazon, which some partners have complained can take more than half of subscription revenue. Two sources told Business Insider that Peacock’s terms looked better than Amazon’s, and partners hope Peacock might eventually allow tactics like free sampling.
From a consumer perspective, bundling is sold as convenience. From a platform perspective, it’s leverage: whoever owns billing owns churn management, pricing experiments, upsell funnels, and data exhaust. The niche streamer becomes a supplier inside someone else’s app, with limited ability to differentiate or communicate directly with its audience.
The streaming industry—after a decade of “disintermediation”—is rebuilding the intermediary, just with nicer UI and more telemetry. Cable’s coaxial cord is gone; the gatekeeper’s incentives are intact.