Want to unwind with some episodes of The Office? Watch all the Harry Potter movies with the kids? Catch some Major League Baseball? Peacock is the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service that's home to all that and plenty more, including original movies and TV series, a smattering of sports and a solid library of classic shows.
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It's also the exclusive place to find some major movie releases not long after they've left the theater: Bugonia, Hamnet, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and Wicked For Good, to name a few notable recent ones. The price tag is reasonable, too, especially if you're able to snag one of Peacock's occasional discount offers. However, certain aspects of the interface are irritating, and I'm often left feeling there's more and better content available elsewhere.
Here's my Peacock review. And while you're at it, check out the best streaming services for TV, movies, sports and more in 2026.
Peacock TV review for 2026
Rick Broida/Yahoo
VERDICT: If you like NBC news, sports and TV series, you'll probably be happy having Peacock as part of your streaming lineup. However, it feels a little light overall, and certain aspects of the interface are annoying.
- Solid, varied collection of movies and TV series, including some exclusives
- Commercial interruptions tend to be brief
- Lots of kid-friendly content
- Telemundo Hub for Spanish-language viewers
- Available with Apple TV for just $4 more
- Sports and NBC originals no longer included in basic tier
- Interface needs work, especially for browsing
- Settings menu difficult to locate
What will it cost you?
In its early days, Peacock TV offered a totally free tier with access to a subset of its library. That's gone, alas, leaving you with a Select, Premium or Premium Plus subscription.
These cost $7.99, $10.99 and $16.99 per month, respectively, but if you prepay for an annual subscription, you effectively get 12 months for the price of 10.
You should definitely be on the lookout for deals, though: Peacock occasionally offers a substantially discounted annual rate, such as $29.99 for one year of Premium. That works out to less than $3 per month, a pretty exceptional price.
There’s also an interesting bundle option: Apple TV and Peacock Premium for $14.99 per month. That's a combined value of $22.99 — a no-brainer if you're interested in both services. (You can also get Apple TV and Peacock Premium Plus for $19.99.)
While you’re at it, be sure to check out Yahoo’s story on how to get Peacock for free (or at a big discount).
The Select plan limits you to basic TV content; you don't get movies, Peacock originals or live sports. That stuff requires a bump up to Premium. As for Plus, it nets you ad-free viewing, though keep in mind that you'll see commercials during any live content (such as sports) and possibly a handful of other streams as well. (Peacock notes there are "limited exclusions" from this promise of no ads.) That's pretty common; similar rules apply at Paramount+.
The Plus subscription also lets you download content for offline viewing (handy if you're getting on a plane and want to load up, say, a season's worth of Yellowstone). Finally, it includes a live-stream of local NBC channels in most areas.
What kind of content does it have?
Just as Paramount+ plays host to past and present CBS TV shows, Peacock serves up current NBC offerings (such as The Voice) along with some classics: Sanford and Son, Little House on the Prairie, The Bionic Woman, etc. Peacock is also the only place to catch all five seasons of Yellowstone (though, weirdly, its spin-off series 1883 and 1923 can be found only on Paramount+). And if you like Law & Order, this is definitely the place for you.
Looking for new shows you can't find elsewhere? I've enjoyed Ponies and The Paper, to name a couple Peacock Originals. There's also a rotating lineup of movies; at this writing, for example, you can watch the aforementioned Oscar-nominee Bugonia, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon and a fairly generous catalog of family-friendly fare, TV and movies alike.
On the live sports front, you'll find NBC Sports programming, which runs the gamut from Sunday Night Football to Premier League soccer to the summer and winter Olympics. There's also some college basketball and football as well as a whole section devoted to WWE wrestling.
Outside of sports and your local NBC station (the latter included only for Premium Plus subscribers), there's not a ton of live content here. In fact, although Peacock touts a Channels section with over 50 choices, it doesn't bear the label "live TV." That's because the majority of these — Sitcom Staples, Comedy Movies, Peacock Reality and so on — are simply the service's on-demand libraries reformatted as a channel guide. Only a handful of news and sports channels are actually live, and even those are mostly of the repackaged-from-various-sources variety. (For example, you won't find CNBC or MSNBC livestreams here, but some shows from the latter news channel are available after airing.)
You do get the Hallmark Channel, as well as plenty of Bravo content: Real Housewives, Below Deck, Vanderpump Rules, etc. And because NBC owns Telemundo, you'll find lots of Spanish-language content in Peacock's eponymous hub.
It's hard to say whether all this content amounts to good or bad, enough or not enough; it's simply what's there. Some of it you'll like, some you won't. Speaking personally, I've found less to enjoy on Peacock than I have, say, Hulu or Paramount+. But that's just me; if you want to perma-binge on the likes of The Office and Parks and Recreation, Peacock will be a good fit.
What's the interface like?
I tested the service on a Sansui S55VOUG TV using both its native Google interface and a Roku Ultra streamer, though the Peacock app is available on virtually all streaming devices. The experience was largely identical, with a couple head-scratching exceptions.
At first blush, Peacock's interface closely resembles that of Disney's, Paramount's and others: A home screen stuffed with rows of recommended and categorical content, anchored by a fly-out main menu to take you to search, movies, live channels and more. It's a familiar, effective design, but things fall apart a bit once you venture into some of the sub-menus.
For example, head to Movies and you'll see a carousel of top picks, a row of personalized recommendations and then a set of "browse by genre" icons: comedy, drama, kids, etc. But when you choose any of these, you get one long page of matches that seem to be in completely random order. There's no further division, no additional categories or top picks or the like. Scrolling through an endless set of thumbnails isn't my idea of a good time.
Similarly, the My Stuff page — which is where you'll find any content you've marked for future viewing — isn't even divided into TV and movies; it's all mish-mashed together, sorted by the date you added them.
Search works well enough, with results appearing dynamically as you type and my standard "Tom Cruise" search producing a couple hits (including the underrated Far and Away). However, while voice search is available in Roku's Peacock app, it's not supported in Google's — odd considering that the TV itself has that feature.
Like a lot of streamers, Peacock automatically plays a preview video of whatever your cursor lands on, which I find incredibly annoying. You can disable that — if you can find the right menu. There's no settings icon in the main menu where you'd expect; instead, you have to scroll up and choose your profile, which takes you to the profile-selection page. No obvious settings menu there, either, though there is an "Account" option with the familiar gear icon alongside it — but, nope, that's just account stuff, terms of service, privacy settings, etc.
No, to change this one setting, you have to actually edit your profile, which is done by selecting the little pencil that appears below the profile picture. None of this is difficult; it's just not intuitive, not logical.
To make matters worse, when I actually selected "Autoplay trailers" in order to toggle it off, a message informed me I had to venture into Roku accessibility settings in order to do this. That seemed odd.
Two final complaints. First, the aforementioned channel guide disappears far too quickly when you're browsing. Stop scrolling for just a few seconds and, poof, it's gone. And while the Roku version of the guide includes a categorical menu (News, Movies, Sports, etc.) so you can quickly jump to the section you want, the Google TV has no such shortcut menu.
Second, if you have the Premium plan, Peacock displays a full-screen ad seconds after you pause a movie or TV show. In a way that feels even more intrusive than the occasional commercial block.
Peacock: The verdict
Peacock is ... fine. For my money, it's a streamer you subscribe to for a month or two so you can binge favorite shows or watch a few movies that aren't available elsewhere, maybe some soccer or the Olympics. It's definitely a strong choice for parents, as there's plenty of worthwhile stuff for kids.
I do wish the company would spend some time addressing the numerous interface annoyances, most of which feel like they could be fixed with a few lines of code. At least Peacock isn't overly expensive, especially if you bundle with Apple TV or snag one of those $30-for-a-whole-year deals. At that price it's easier to overlook the UI shortcomings.
Peacock streaming service FAQs
What are the strengths of Peacock streaming?
Peacock's main strengths include a considerable catalog of NBC shows (include massive hits like The Office and Parks and Rec), plenty of family-friendly content and an entire hub devoted to Spanish-language programming. It's another worthwhile option for cord-cutters looking to break free from cable.
What are the weaknesses of Peacock streaming?
Peacock doesn't have the best user interface; it's not well-designed for browsing all the available shows and movies, and you have to work harder than necessary just to find the settings menu. I also find it annoying that the so-called "Premium" subscription still forces you to watch commercials.
Does Peacock have live streaming?
While Peacock is mostly an on-demand service, it does offer some live content, including news and sports. There's also a channel guide that looks not unlike what you'd see on cable TV, but most of the channels there are just repackaged on-demand shows and movies. If you're interested in "traditional" live TV, check out our roundup of the best live TV streaming services.
Update, April 1, 2026: We modified our Peacock review to reflect changes in pricing, movie and TV selections and the availability of an Apple TV bundle. Our overall rating for the service is unchanged.
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