NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service app is now finally available on Roku devices and Roku-enabled televisions, almost 10 weeks after the new streaming service launched.

Peacock’s appearance on Roku came after NBCUniversal and Roku reached a deal guaranteeing NBCU’s networks (and corresponding apps for 11 NBCU networks, 12 NBCU-owned local stations, and 23 Telemundo-owned local stations) will remain available on the Roku platform and in return, Roku will support Peacock. The deal was seen as crucial by analysts, because Roku has an installed user base of over 43 million accounts, with an estimated 100 million viewers in households across the country.

“We are pleased that NBC agreed to a very positive and mutually beneficial partnership to bring Peacock to America’s No. 1 streaming platform,” said Tedd Cittadine, Roku’s vice president of content acquisition. “We are excited by the opportunities to integrate NBC content within the Roku Channel while we also work together with Peacock on the development of a significant and meaningful advertising and ad tech partnership. This is a great outcome for consumers and we look forward to growing together with Peacock as they bring their incredible content to the Roku platform.”

Roku is also pleased whenever a significant content provider signs a deal with the company. Roku traditionally takes a 20% cut of all subscription revenue when a customer signs up for a service on the Roku platform. It receives at least 30% of the advertising time on free streaming services, allowing Roku to sell advertising and keep the money. NBCU appeared to be reluctant to accept those terms, and that is likely what caused the delay in debuting Peacock on Roku. Neither party would disclose the terms in the contract. Comcast is the parent company of NBCU.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said last week Peacock had signed up at least 15 million new users over the last two months. But Roberts would not disclose how many were actually paying for the service. Peacock’s free, ad-supported tier offers over 13,000 hours of classic and current NBC programs, including entertainment, news, and sports. A small catalog of original series and other premium content is also available for $4.99 a month (or $49.99/yr), and users who want it all — without ads — can pay $9.99 a month (or $99.99/yr). Roberts likely needs a much larger subscriber base to make Peacock a viable proposition, making its availability on the Roku platform crucial.

Some analysts fear carriage disputes like this could open a new front in the “retransmission consent” wars, where national and local networks are blacked out when cable or satellite providers refuse to pay their asking prices. If Roku insists on being compensated in return for making services available in its app store and if content providers cannot reach an agreement, services could suddenly disappear, or never appear at all. HBO Max is still unavailable on Roku because parent company AT&T has yet to sign a contract with Roku, and Peacock remains unavailable on Amazon’s Fire TV platform and Samsung’s Smart TVs.

The forthcoming conversion of digital over-the-air TV stations from ATSC 1 to ATSC 3.0 will open up space for a new pay TV service that will bundle dozens of local and national channels with a video on demand service selling for as little as $20 a month.

Evoca is launching a consumer trial of its new service in Boise, Ida. in September, with plans to gradually expand service to small and medium-sized communities around the country.

Parent company Edge Networks is still negotiating with programmers, but will eventually sell a package of over 80 channels at a price it claims will be “less than half the cost of cable” TV. New customers will be offered a temporary promotional rate of $20 a month, but the service will eventually cost $49.95 a month. How can it afford to charge less? By offering customers a receiver that combines free, over the air local channels with a lineup of pay cable networks and, eventually, streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Evoca won’t have to pay local station retransmission fees since customers will be watching those channels directly over the air.

About half of Evoca’s lineup will be delivered over two existing ATSC 3.0 low power TV stations owned by Cocola Broadcasting and leased to Evoca in Boise, compressing 20 encrypted digital channels on each station (KBSE-LD on Channel 33 and KCBB-LD on Channel 34). Boise is located in the Treasure Valley, an optimal place to receive unobstructed low power television signals. Evoca’s set-top box has a connection for a UHF-TV antenna. A basic indoor antenna is offered by the service. ATSC 3.0 signals are expected to be more reliable in fringe reception zones than the existing ATSC 1 standard, which gives Evoca confidence it can supply quality reception. Evoca will also carefully identify which zip codes are likely to receive good reception from the two stations and will not sell the service in areas that cannot get good reception.

The rest of Evoca’s lineup will be delivered over the customer’s home internet connection (at least 5 Mbps recommended). An included set-top box integrates everything together, so customers won’t know or care if they are watching a standard over the air signal, one of Evoca’s compressed and encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels, or a video stream from the internet.  Evoca claims to support both HD and 4K video, where available.

Evoca’s launch market of Boise was not chosen randomly. The company is based in Boise. It will seek to offer the service in cities where cable companies have either given up on selling television packages or charges above average rates for a below average lineup. Most Boise residents are currently served by Sparklight, formerly Cable One, which was among the first to deprioritize selling television service. Sparklight’s still available TV package is costly and many subscribers have dropped it.

Evoca also has an edge attracting older viewers because it will bundle dozens of digital networks like Cozi and Me-TV that favor classic TV shows and movies. These digital over the air channels are often not included on cable lineups.

Evoca TV Trial for Boise Residents

If you live in Boise, you could be among the 200 customers selected for “early access” to Evoca when it launches September 1. Early adopters will receive a free receiver (a $100 value), free antenna, an Evoca t-shirt, and a preview package of 60+ channels for $20 a month until the end of 2021. On January 1, 2022 the price will increase to $49/month. For more information, visit the Evoca website. At the moment, the most compelling channels are those already provided over the air for free, and there are a handful of on-demand services to fill some sizeable gaps in the current lineup. Evoca claims it is close to reaching deals with more familiar cable networks and will bring those to the lineup in the coming months. A cloud based DVR service is also planned for sometime in the future.

Assuming the service achieves success in Boise, expect it to expand to other cities in Idaho and Montana first, then Nevada and Utah, and finally parts of Texas and Oklahoma. The company claims it is interested in providing nationwide service, but that will highly depend on its ability to lease at least two low power television stations in each market it intends to serve. Considering the fact many low power stations are owned by hedge funds or other investors that have parked home shopping or other free-to-air networks on their stations hoping to monetize them later (or offer to close them down so the spectrum can be used by cell phone companies), Evoca may not have too much trouble finding other partners to support an expansion. But reception of low power signals can vary widely, especially in difficult terrain areas.

Evoca produced this video demonstrating how to set up the service. (1:30)

(Reuters) – Comcast-owned NBCUniversal entered a crowded streaming market today by launching its Peacock streaming service nationally, offering 20,000 hours of content, including NBC shows such as “30 Rock,” “Cheers” and “Saturday Night Live.”

The service, which became available to some Comcast subscribers in April, is the media giant’s effort to offset declines in Comcast’s cable TV business – while finding a new way to monetize NBC and Universal content and maintain demand for the company’s broadband business, which powers streaming services.

Peacock will include a mix of NBC series, sports, news and original shows – such as the dystopian drama “Brave New World” and documentary “In Deep with Ryan Lochte” – as well as content it licenses from ViacomCBS and other networks and studios.

The service will also be available on Sony’s PlayStation 4 gaming console from July 20, Peacock said on Tuesday.

Unlike the majority of its streaming rivals, Peacock is offering a free, ad-supported version, which will include 13,000 hours of programming. NBCUniversal hopes to lure advertisers through the vast amounts of data it can use to target commercials based on viewers’ interests, including data from Comcast’s cable TV set-top boxes.

Peacock also has two paid options: a $4.99 per month service with commercials and 20,000 hours of programming; and an ad-free version costing $9.99 per month.

NBCUniversal missed the opportunity to market Peacock during its broadcast of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which were postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. And as the last entry to the streaming war, Peacock will be competing for streaming dollars with services such as Netflix, Walt Disney-owned Disney+ and Amazon.com’s Amazon Prime Video.

But Peacock’s free option could be a draw for viewers who have already maxed out their monthly entertainment budgets, at a time when U.S. viewers stuck at home are hungry for more content.

YouTube TV has announced the addition of eight new Viacom-owned networks to their lineup, but has also passed along word the price is going up 30%, from $49.99 to $64.99/mo effective from Tuesday for new customers, Aug. 1 for existing customers.

Google last raised the price of the service in April 2019 when a YouTube TV subscription increased by 25% to $49.99.

Today we are also adding more of ViacomCBS’s family of channels to YouTube TV, which includes 8 of your favorites: BET, CMT, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Network, TV Land, and VH1.

To continue delivering the best content and service possible, we’re also updating our price for new and existing members to $64.99/month. Existing members will see these changes reflected in their subsequent billing cycle after July 30, 2020.

YouTube TV was widely perceived to be the best value streaming service combined with the best interface and feature set, including unlimited DVR service and the ability to share the service with up to six family members (up to three watching concurrently). The service has benefited from unfettered price hikes by its streaming competitors, notably AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now). But social media channels show customers are not thrilled about a $15 rate increase, even with the addition of eight channels to the lineup:

Here is the link.
How to cancel your membership
Visit https://t.co/Y0mjUzRIzM on a computer or your mobile web browser.
Go to Settings. Membership .
Click Pause or cancel membership. Cancel membership.

— ꧁ MeshMN ꧂ 🇺🇸 🌊 (@xMeshMNx) June 30, 2020

Canceled. Ethics still mean something. YouTube TV lost them.

— SiouxieKitty (@SiouxieKitty) June 30, 2020

How does YouTube TV think anyone is going to pay the same amount as all the major streaming services COMBINED:

Netflix 4k: $15.99
Hulu (no-ads): $11.99
HBO Max: $14.99
Apple TV+: $4.99
Prime: $9.91
Disney+: $6.99

Total: $64.86

YouTube TV: $64.99 /mohttps://t.co/1v7KKpsKNm

— Mac Faulkner (@macfaulkner) June 30, 2020

“how can we @ YouTube TV show our love and appreciation for our customers, in the midst of a pandemic and massive unemployment?”
“hike the price $15 a month?”
“bingo!”

— Daniel Smith (@javajoint) June 30, 2020

AT&T mobile customers can watch AT&T-owned HBO Max without fearing any impact on their data allowances, despite the fact competing services like Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix will not be given similar treatment.

The Verge confirmed with AT&T that customers with AT&T mobile service can watch an unlimited amount of HBO Max and not exceed data allowances or the soft cap of 22-50 GB a month that unlimited use plan customers have.

The practice of exempting some content from data caps is known as “zero rating” and critics of the practice contend it is an “end run” around net neutrality. AT&T defends itself claiming HBO Max is paying AT&T to sponsor customer usage.

“According to an AT&T executive familiar with the matter, HBO Max is using AT&T’s ‘sponsored data’ system, which technically allows any company to pay to excuse its services from data caps,” according to the story in The Verge. “But since AT&T owns HBO Max, it’s just paying itself: the data fee shows up on the HBO Max books as an expense and on the AT&T Mobility books as revenue. For AT&T as a whole, it zeroes out. Compare that to a competitor like Netflix, which could theoretically pay AT&T for sponsored data, but it would be a pure cost.”

In short, AT&T is moving money from one of its pockets to the other, which may tangentially benefit AT&T mobile customers, but will also leave competing streaming services at a disadvantage, allowing AT&T to give preferential treatment to its own streaming service, which may discourage subscriptions to other services.

Ars Technica confirmed AT&T is not extending the data cap exemption to customers with AT&T DSL or Fiber service.