At long last, NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service is coming to Amazon’s Fire TV set-tops and Fire tablets this week.
After launching over a year ago, Peacock had struggled to reach an agreement with Amazon amid disputes over access to the platform’s ad inventory. But a newly-inked deal will see Peacock officially launch on Amazon devices in the U.S. beginning Thursday, June 24 — just a month out from the start of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, for which NBCU holds the media rights.
“By pairing Peacock with Fire TV, our joint customers will be able to use Alexa and personalized recommendations to rediscover some of the world’s most-loved sitcoms, watch all-new shows like ‘Girls5Eva,’ and follow Olympic highlights — all from one service,” Daniel Rausch, VP of Amazon Entertainment Devices and Services, told Variety.
The distribution deal will also see the debut of 15 NBCUniversal apps on Amazon devices, including various NBC apps and Telemundo. While the platform has an ad-supported free tier, it also offers two paid tiers, including a premium ad-supported tier for $5 per month and a completely ad-free tier that will run you $10 per month. The deal will likely be a boon to Peacock, which had 42 million “sign-ups,” but fewer than 10 million paying subscribers as of May 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“We aim to make Peacock as widely available as possible, so we’re excited to bring the service to millions more people who stream on Fire TV and Fire tablets,” Maggie McLean Suniewick, NBCUniversal’s president of business development and partnerships, direct-to-consumer, said in a statement. “Amazon customers will find amazing content to stream this summer on Peacock from the Tokyo Olympics to ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business.’”
Amazon customers will be able to use Alexa’s voice-activated system to launch Peacock, and the Peacock app on Fire TVs and Fire tablets is compatible with the entire Fire TV product lineup including Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick Lite, and Fire TV smart TV.
News of the deal comes about nine months after it was announced that NBCU had reached a distribution agreement for Peacock with Roku, which Comcast is reportedly currently eyeing for an acquisition deal.
