Comcast video customers will be the first to get Comcast/NBCUniversal’s new streaming platform, dubbed “Peacock,” featuring over 400 TV series and 600 movies, mostly from the library of Universal Studios, beginning this spring.

“This is a very exciting time for our company, as we chart the future of entertainment,” NBCUniversal chairman Steve Burke said at an event this afternoon announcing details about the service to Comcast’s investors. “We have one of the most enviable collections of media brands and the strongest ad sales track record in the business. Capitalizing on these key strengths, we are taking a unique approach to streaming that brings value to customers, advertisers and shareholders.”

Peacock will feature multiple tiers of service, at least two available for free:

• Peacock Free: This ad-supported tier (promised to include only five minutes of ads per hour) will be available to all and will feature about half of Peacock’s content library (7,500 hours). Similar to Hulu’s basic service, this free tier will offer next-day access to currently airing NBC TV series, entire seasons of selected older shows, selected movies, news, and sports programming. Some of Peacock’s original series will also be available on the free tier, along with a selection of clips and shows highlighting NBC content like Saturday Night Live, Family Movie Night, and the Olympics.
• Peacock for Authenticated TV Subscribers (free): If you are a current Comcast or Cox cable TV subscriber, you can get Peacock’s Premium offering with a complete selection of Peacock content at no charge. This tier offers 15,000 hours of live/on-demand content, but has advertising. You can get rid of the ads by paying an extra $5 a month.
• Peacock Premium: If you are a cord-cutter or do not subscribe to a TV package with a Comcast-partnered provider, you can subscribe directly to Peacock’s premium, ad-free version for $10 a month. This unlocks the complete lineup of Peacock content.

NBCUniversal officials also used today’s event to announce more original programming deals beyond those already announced, including new original comedies from Tina Fey, Sky Studios, Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler. Almost all of Dick Wolf’s ubiquitous Law & Order (and its various spinoff series) will also be available for streaming, as will his current roster of Chicago-based series Fire, P.D., and Med. Peacock Premium customers will also be able to stream NBC’s late-night shows before they air on NBC. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon will be available as early as 8 p.m. ET and Late Night with Seth Meyers will be available by 9 p.m.

Peacock will enter a very crowded field of streaming services, and is the last previously announced streaming service to launch, likely shortly after AT&T launches HBO Max. The fact there will be a free version may make the service more palatable to consumers weary of subscribing to yet another paid streaming service, on top of Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, and a range of specialty streaming services featuring international programming, sports, movies, and documentaries.

Hulu + Live TV is celebrating its successful signup of over an estimated 2.7 million customers with a major rate increase the company says reflects the service’s true value in the marketplace.

Most customers will see their subscription price increase by $10 a month, from $45 to $55 a month.

“Today, we’re letting customers know that the monthly base price of Hulu + Live TV will increase to $54.99, beginning December 18,” the company wrote in a blog post. “The new price better reflects the substantial value of Hulu + Live TV and allows us to continue offering all of the popular live news, sports and entertainment programming included in the plan.”

Craig Moffett, a chief analyst at MoffettNathanson, told readers of his Cord Cutting Monitor quarterly newsletter that Hulu + Live TV, which combines Hulu’s on demand plan with a selection of about 60 streaming live TV networks, is likely America’s largest cable TV replacement service, topping Sling TV’s estimated 2.686 million customers.

Moffett also reported that cord cutting is becoming a more costly proposition.

“Eighteen months ago, the cheapest video packages for vMVPDs were clustered around $30 to $35 per month,” Moffett wrote. “Eighteen months later, most are in the $45 to $50 per month range, an increase of roughly 50%.”

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co said demand for its much-anticipated streaming service, Disney+, was well above its expectations in a launch on Tuesday marred by complaints from users about glitches and connection problems.

Disney+ is relying on its extensive library of movies and TV shows as well as a new slate of content to take on market leader Netflix Inc and Apple TV+, Apple Inc’s newly launched streaming service.

Disney shares were up about 2%, while Netflix was down 1%.

“The consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our highest expectations. …we are aware of the current user issues and are working to swiftly resolve them,” Disney said in a statement.

Some users who tried to access the service were greeted by an image of “Mickey Mouse” on a blue screen, with a message asking them to exit the app and try again. Many others had trouble finding the Disney+ app in Apple’s App Store.

It was not immediately clear how many users were affected by the outage.

“Not too surprised but @disneyplus looks like it’s already falling over. On FireTV Stick can’t load main page (Unable to connect to Disney+) and couldn’t play The Mandalorian (some account issue),” user @pmhesse here tweeted.

Not too surprised but @disneyplus looks like it’s already falling over. On FireTV Stick can’t load main page (Unable to connect to Disney+) and couldn’t play The Mandalorian (some account issue). Hopefully it’s worked out by tomorrow’s treadmill time.

— Peter Hesse (@pmhesse) November 12, 2019

“The Mandalorian,” the latest in the “Star Wars” movie and TV franchise, is an eight-episode live-action series which stars “Game of Thrones” actor Pedro Pascal as a helmeted bounty hunter.

“While it’s easy to focus on the temporary problems, there’s no doubt that this also shows an enormous demand for Disney’s services,” said Clement Thibault, an analyst at financial markets platform Investing.com.

“Big launches often have their hiccups when consumers are fighting to be the first to have a given service.”

Users who accessed Disney+ were upbeat about content from the Marvel superhero universe, the “Star Wars” galaxy, “Toy Story” creator Pixar Animation and the National Geographic.

“Today is the perfect day to just stay home all day on my couch in my PJ’s binging all of my favorite Disney movies on #DisneyPlus,” tweeted @JulieDwoskin.

Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Arun Koyyur

The era of fierce competition among live streamed video providers that has fueled cord-cutting will face new challenges as providers cope with rising programming costs and some may exit the business.

Last week, Sony’s PlayStation Vue announced it was planning to cease service in early 2020 because it was not profitable for the game console manufacturer. But Cowen analyst Gregory Williams believes it won’t be the last to close its doors.

Williams told Multichannel News that despite the growing phenomenon of cord-cutting, new streaming subscriptions are slowing down as subscribers choose between a half-dozen major services that are all raising prices, including AT&T TV Now, fuboTV, Hulu Live TV, Philo, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. Williams called the current marketplace for streaming services irrational in the business sense, because providers are at the mercy of programmers that are continuing to raise wholesale prices.

Another serious problem is price disparity. Programmers offer huge volume discounts to large cable, satellite, and telco TV providers, charging smaller streaming services considerably more. That could eventually bring streaming subscription prices to parity with the same traditional cable and satellite providers many consumers left looking for a better deal.

Most streaming TV providers have built business models on slimmed-down packages of channels, rejecting the difficult-to-negotiate a-la-carte “choose your own channels” model many customers have been asking for since the days of 100 channel cable TV lineups. As a result, consumers are still paying for lots of channels they do not watch or want, and as subscription costs advance beyond the $50 a month many services are now charging for a healthy package of most popular cable and broadcast networks, some subscribers may end up going back to their old providers.

Ironically, one of the few a-la-carte providers available is a very large cable company you may already know. Charter’s Spectrum has been quietly selling TV Choice, a package of 10 ‘you-pick’ networks (mostly a part of Spectrum’s Standard TV package) combined with C-SPAN, public, educational, and government access channels, home shopping, and local over-the-air stations, to its internet-only customers for $24.95 a month (not including a $6/mo Broadcast TV Fee and an extra $4.95 a month for a cloud-based DVR service). The resulting bill of around $35-40 a month is at least $10 less than many streaming service providers that may not offer the exact channel lineup you are looking for.

The closest alternative is Sling TV, which has very slim packages of networks in three different configurations, ranging from $15-25 a month. But chances are, some channels you watch won’t be included.

Williams predicts that just three to five services will survive the consolidation wave or exit that is expected to be triggered by Sony’s decision to leave the marketplace. The services most vulnerable are likely those lacking a deep-pocketed, healthy corporate backer or those with the least market share.

An executive for one of PlayStation Vue’s rivals told Multichannel News Sony faced platform costs that “were simply too high.” Sony paid broadcast retransmission consent fees to local stations in every market the service was offered and also licensed popular, but very expensive regional sports channels. Sony also outsourced its streaming technology to Disney-owned BAMTech, among the more expensive platform providers.

Sony is throwing in the towel on its streaming TV service, PlayStation Vue, with the announcement the service will close down early next year.

“Today we are announcing that we will shut down the PlayStation Vue service on January 30, 2020. Unfortunately, the highly competitive Pay TV industry, with expensive content and network deals, has been slower to change than we expected. Because of this, we have decided to remain focused on our core gaming business,” the company said on its blog.

PlayStation Vue debuted over four years ago, but was immediately met with two difficulties that proved insurmountable:

1. Many wrongly believed the service was only available to those owning a PlayStation gaming console. While there are over 100 million PlayStation 4 units in use today, a significant number of cord-cutters do not own any gaming console and thought that put PlayStation Vue out of reach.
2. Sony has no ties to other TV providers, making it impossible to get the kinds of volume discounts available to large satellite, telco TV, and cable operators. As the costs of video programming continue to increase, PlayStation Vue losses widened for Sony and left customers looking for savings off a traditional cable TV bill frustrated by increasing rates for streaming providers. PlayStation Vue hiked rates $5 a month last July, reaching $50 a month, and it was clear more rate hikes would be needed in the future.

PlayStation Vue was always a money loser for Sony and reportedly has around 500,000 subscribers — a relatively small number in comparison to services like Sling and AT&T TV Now. Within the last week, reports leaked out that Sony was looking for a buyer for PlayStation Vue, but apparently could not find one that met the company’s terms. Sony is under pressure by Wall Street activist investor Daniel Loeb, who wants the company to restructure and eliminate money-losing services like PlayStation Vue to boost Sony’s stock price.

PlayStation Vue primarily offered live feeds of linear TV channels. Linear TV viewing is on the decline as viewers increasingly move towards on-demand viewing and services like Netflix and Hulu that deliver plenty of that content at a much lower cost.