NBC 5 launches 24/7 news channel on Peacock
Streaming news wars escalates as CBSN rebrands
Following in the footsteps of CBSN Chicago, NBC 5 (WMAQ-TV) launched a new 24/7 all-news streaming service on the Peacock streaming platform last Thursday.
Both NBC 5 and Peacock share Comcast’s NBCUniversal as a corporate parent.
Branded NBC Chicago News, the new 24/7 channel features live simulcasts and encores of NBC 5 newscasts, not to mention other news and local programming. The channel is reminiscent of the old NBC Non-Stop digital subchannels in the company’s O&O markets before they were rebranded as Cozi TV.
“We’re thrilled to add the incredible reporting of our NBC-owned television stations to Peacock’s unique programming slate that both informs and entertains,” said Jen Brown, who is senior VP of program planning for Peacock. “We know the importance of local news to our subscribers and this further distinguishes the Peacock experience where you can stream everything from award-winning news content to original scripted shows, premium movies, live sports and more all on our platform.”
The move is part of an effort by NBC Owned Television Stations to add local programs from its owned stations to Peacock. Similar efforts were launched last Thursday in Philadelphia (WCAU), Boston (WBTS and all-news cable channel NECN), and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale (WTVJ).
NBC’s two largest stations – WNBC New York and KNBC Los Angeles plan to launch their streaming news channels later this year. No word on when other NBC stations in Dallas, Hartford, San Francisco, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. would follow.
Earlier, CBS-owned stations launched similar channels in their markets on the CBSN platform, including CBS-owned WBBM-TV’s CBSN Chicago. On Monday, CBSN was rebranded as CBS News And Streaming Network with a revamped lineup adding more live news hours, new news shows (such as Red & Blue, a nightly political news show) and the return of CBS Reports, a hard-news documentary series that premiered on CBS in 1959 as a regular series and after 1971, ran sporadically through the late 2000s. The local news channels are being branded too, with CBSN Chicago becoming CBS News Chicago and all can be found on PlutoTV and Paramount Plus streaming platforms, who share ViacomCBS as a corporate parent with CBS 2 and CBS News.
As for the local NBC news channels, one drawback is when you log in to Peacock, the local news channels are not on the front page but you can find then in the “channels” section and when you look there, video and sound play over the selections in the background and it is aggravating and annoying.
NBC Chicago News and the other NBC local news channels are available for free for all Peacock users in its free and subscription tiers and is available anywhere in the country.
All Big Four networks have been ramping their streaming news efforts for the last few years…besides CBS News and its local components, you also have NBC with its News Now and LX channels, as well as the aforementioned O&O streams on Peacock, ABC has its News Live channel and is continuing to expand its streaming footprints with its O&Os re-launching their news streams with 24/7 content (including live, digital-only newscasts), and Fox has its Weather and LiveNow streams. Keep in mind though, that LiveNow from Fox is content culled from the Fox O&Os’ news departments, and have little-to-no interaction with Fox News Channel. Fox Weather, however, do interact with the individual Fox-owned stations and their weather departments.
Unlike with CBS, Fox (FoxNow and some versions of Tubi), and NBC (Peacock), the ABC O&Os live news streams aren’t in a centralized location (i.e. the ABC and ABC News apps), so you would have to go each O&O’s app to view not only that station’s live stream, but you can also access the other seven O&Os live news streams as well.
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