The A+E logo.
Television

Peacock Strikes Licensing Deal With A+E Networks

Key Takeaways

Peacock is a free ad-supported streaming service with subscription tiers, providing customers with a unique, timely and complete entertainment experience that offers everything they love to watch, all in one place.
Peacock launches in April for Comcast video customers with Xfinity X1 and internet-only customers with Xfinity Flex, and nationally across platforms in July.
Featured A&E series available on Peacock include "Cold Case Files," "First 48" and "Storage Wars." Featured HISTORY series include "American Pickers," "Ancient Aliens" and "Curse of Oak Island."

New York, NY

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service, today announced a licensing deal with A+E Networks that will make hundreds of hours of episodes of hit series from A&E and HISTORY available to stream after the service launches later this year.

Customers will enjoy access to popular A&E series including “First 48,” “Storage Wars” and “Cold Case Files,” and hit series from HISTORY including “Pawn Stars,” “American Pickers,” “Ancient Aliens,” “Curse of Oak Island” and “Project Blue Book.”

“We are excited to make some of A+E Networks’ most popular shows available on Peacock later this year,” said Frances Manfredi, President, Content Acquisition and Strategy, Peacock and NBCUniversal Digital Enterprises. “In addition to the strong portfolio of NBCUniversal programming available on Peacock, we continue to aggregate content from other networks and studios, like A&E and HISTORY, that maximizes the breadth and depth of choice for our customers.”

We of course strongly believe in the power of the A+E Networks’ library of content, and that it will prove to strengthen Peacock’s offerings.
Steve MacDonald
President, Global Content Licensing and International, A+E Networks

Peacock is a free ad-supported streaming service with subscription tiers, providing customers with a unique, timely and complete entertainment experience that offers everything they love to watch, all in one place. Launching in April for Comcast video customers with Xfinity X1 and internet-only customers with Xfinity Flex, and nationally across platforms in July, Peacock will feature thousands of hours of on demand movies and shows—including exclusive originals— from NBCUniversal and beyond, as well as current and live content including news, sports, late night, reality, Hispanic programming and more.

“We are excited to partner with Peacock,” said Steve MacDonald, President, Global Content Licensing and International, A+E Networks. “We of course strongly believe in the power of the A+E Networks’ library of content, and that it will prove to strengthen Peacock’s offerings.”

Featured A&E series available on Peacock include:

  • “Cold Case Files” – One of A&E’s most beloved and successful series of all time, the series explores compelling new cases that have gone cold for years and chronicles the journeys of the detectives who reopened them. The series originally premiered in 1998 and ran for nearly 10 years, where it quickly became the network’s highest rated series.
  • “First 48” – A genre-defining series that has inspired countless true crime programs. After 15 years and thousands of investigations, audiences continue to be engrossed in the compelling cases and emotional stories featured in the series.
  • “Storage Wars” – Following its 2010 debut, the series quickly became the channel’s top-rated non-scripted series and went on to inspire a number of similar series and creating an entire reality TV subgenre. The series follows professional buyers who visit storage facilities looking to strike it rich by buying repossessed storage units. 

Featured HISTORY series available on Peacock include:

  • “American Pickers” – One of the network’s most popular shows, the documentary series explores the world of antique “picking” as Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz hunt for America’s most valuable antiques and the stories that follow them.
  • “Ancient Aliens” – One of cable’s longest-running and most popular shows, the series explores the controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of years.
  • “Curse of Oak Island” – Cable’s top nonfiction series, averaging over four million viewers, follows Rick, Marty and the Oak Island team in their quest to solve the 224-year old treasure mystery.
  • “Pawn Stars” – The longest-running show in cable, the series takes you inside the colorful world of the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop on the outskirts of Las Vegas, run by the Harrison family.
  • “Project Blue Book” – The popular new series follows a brilliant professor recruited by the U.S. Air Force to spearhead the military’s clandestine investigations into reports of UFOs and related phenomena. Each episode draws material from the authentic government files that were top secret when they were originally compiled under the Blue Book header.