NBC Universal

January 16, 2020

NBC Displays Peacock’s Plumage: Price, Release Date, Library

Peter Paltridge comcast, NBC, NBC Universal, peacock, Streaming 0

Only a few more months until we’re so drowned in streaming services that we can’t take it. As you know, every major studio is getting one, and NBC Universal finally revealed all the details for their effort, Peacock, today. They are the last to do so, and they’ll be the last to launch, with a public access date of July 15, 2020. With a launch that late, they better be competitive, right? Well, that depends on how you look at it. The complete service costs $9.99 a month, which is higher than Disney+ but lower than HBO Max. Those who already have Comcast or Cox cable services will only have to pay $5, but then you’d have the problem of being shackled to the most overpriced and anti-consumer cable business in all of creation, so it’s kind of a wash. But here’s something Peacock is doing that no other service offers: free access to some of its shows. They’ll come with ads, of course, and what you can view will

September 11, 2013

How Do You Solve A Problem Like G4?

Jeff Harris cable, commentary, Esquire Network, G4, Live-Action, NBC Universal, network branding, TechTV, television 0

As a TechTV fan, I am all but contractually obliged to hate G4 and root for its failure and utter demise. Why shouldn’t I? When Comcast bought TechTV, instead of it being a solid merger of equals (which it wasn’t), the lesser-known G4 culture took over the more tech-savvy, nerd-friendly environment of TechTV. The show that was essentially the face of TechTV, The Screen Savers, was affected the most in the transition, eventually morphing into Attack of the Show. The show affected the least was X-Play, one of the two real reasons Comcast bought TechTV for in the first place (the other being the lucrative, plentiful channel space). By the end of 2005, the G4 virus had completely taken over the network, and all things TechTV was gone. They decided to go for that 18-34 male demographic that no other network caters to except for every five out of six television networks in the United States in 2005 and cut back on original fare for the remainder of the decade. In