Hulu is poised to lose next-day streams of NBCUniversal programming like Saturday Night Live, a change expected in the fall as NBCU shifts to streaming exclusivity over to its own service Peacock instead.
An NBCU spokeswoman said Friday that Comcast-owned NBCUniversal has terminated the deal with Hulu, which gave Hulu the rights to stream its programming the day after it aired. This specific licensing change was anticipated by earlier reports, and an NBCUniversal strategy to reserve more of its content for Peacock had been on the march long before that.
It's the latest example of a media company clawing back rights to shore up its own upstart streaming service. Peacock -- like the rest in the parade of new streaming services including Disney Plus, HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus and Discovery Plus -- hopes its particular concoction of streaming programming will hook you on its own vision for TV's future. But as more and more companies circle their wagons around their own service, navigating the services you must use (and, often, pay for) to watch your favorite shows and movies online only grows more complicated.
Separately, a Hulu spokeswoman said the service had anticipated possible changes in the programming it licenses, pointing to investments in original content including shows like Only Murders in the Building and Reservation Dogs and the movie Summer of Soul.
NBC was a partner in Hulu for years, but in 2019, NBCUniversal-owner Comcast struck a deal with Disney to give Disney full Hulu control. That deal included licensing terms that essentially allowed NBC to have programming stream both on Hulu and on Peacock at the same time. Hulu's licenses for these programs extend through 2024; this year, however, NBCUniversal had the right (but not the obligation) to cancel most of its content-licensing agreements with Hulu, according to previous reports.
Peacock is a partly free, partly paywalled streaming service that kicked off last year. Peacock is unique among the new crop of rivals in offering a free tier, which lets anyone in the US watch about two-thirds of the catalog with advertising. It also has paid memberships: You can unlock the full library of shows and movies for $5 a month with ads or $10 a month without.
NBCUniversal didn't provide details on when its programming would shift to Peacock exclusively or whether the programming would be paywalled there.
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