In this age of everyone having on streaming service, it’s no surprise when a company decides that they’re going to have their shows streaming only on their own service. Such is the case with NBC, which has announced that, starting this fall, next day streaming of most of their Primetime programming will only be available on their Peacock network, per What’s On Disney Plus. Prior to this next day streaming had been available on Hulu, but that will no longer be the case.

While they have not stated exactly how much of their Primetime schedule will become unavailable on Hulu, they have announced that many of their key shows, including Saturday Night Live, will be available for next day streaming only on Peacock. As the fall TV season gets closer, we will have a clearer idea of exactly which shows will be affected by this decision. Beyond the next day streaming of their Primetime shows, NBC/Universal will start slowly pulling the rest of their catalog from Hulu over the next several months. It is not exactly clear what the timetable will be on this pullout, but it will be a gradual pullout and that content will port over to Peacock.

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Many Hulu customers will of course be upset by this news, as it means that they need to acquire the streaming service in addition to what they already have. However, Comcast customers do receive Peacock as part of their Comcast service as Comcast owns NBC.

Comcast Owns a Stake in Hulu

     Hulu

When Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, part of that purchase was Fox’s stake in Hulu. Comcast, the parent company of NBC/Universal also owns a stake in Hulu. When the purchase of Fox went through, Comcast and Disney struck a deal has to how the two companies would work together going forward with regards to Hulu.

As part of that agreement, Comcast was given the ability to start pulling all NBC/Universal properties from Hulu in the year 2022. Comcast is exercising that ability this year. By exercising this ability to pull NBC/Universal content and putting that content on Peacock instead of Hulu, Comcast is consolidating their content in one place. By doing so this allows Comcast to profit more from their own product.

The other part of the agreement stated that in 2024, one of two things could happen with Comcast’s stake in Hulu. Either Disney could force Comcast to sell their stake in Hulu to Disney or Comcast could force Disney to buy Comcast’s stake. Beginning to move NBC/Universal’s content from Hulu to Peacock is undoubtedly a first step towards Comcast exercising the right to force Disney to purchase Comcast’s stake in Hulu. This would benefit both companies as Comcast would make money and Disney would get more control over Hulu, allowing Disney to have more complete control over Hulu programming.

In the meantime, customers who wish to stream NBC/Universal programming will need to acquire the Peacock streaming service. Comcast customers get the Peacock service for free as a part of their service. Other customers have a choice between three different levels of service at different price points, including a free level of service, although the free service does not include next day streaming of programming.

More information about when NBC/Universal programming will disappear from Hulu should be forthcoming within the next several months.