When a major business buys up another one there are usually one of two things at work. It is either knocking out a competitor like when you see mergers between two cell phone companies or grocery stores or the entity is buying something with a use case in mind. The best example of this would be Google buying YouTube. Nope Google did not invent YouTube.
In January there was some buzz in the tech tv world about XUMO being targeted by much larger firms. The sale finally happened some time after CES seeing Comcast buy the free AVOD and live streaming platform and bringing it into the fold. The results have not really been evident in the basic XUMO app found across multiple streaming platforms including tight integration into smart TV’s from LG and Samsung. But jump into Peacock and you see exactly why XUMO is part of the Comcast family. It was bought so the Comcast would not have to reinvent the wheel in order to provide a live TV channel experience within its app. Instead it let XUMO do what it does best curate material from Comcast’s library into 24-7 channels highlighting its content and monitoring it with short commercials between segments.
The channels portion of Peacock is not reserved for Comcast’s properties as you will see other popular entertainment, News and sports brands within the app but the style is unmistakable. For instance the Channels section breaks up multiple clips/sketches from Saturday Night Live so that fans can just sit back and watch funny takes from different casts roll on by all day. There are a number of other special channels like that including an option to watch short segments from The Office, The Tonight Show. There are also full episodes of content from a number of providers.
The content can be very addictive.
Regardless this is obviously what Comcast had in mind when it reeled XUMO in. We do not know whether NBC content will be worked in to XUMO’s normal app going forward but we understand that the channels section of Peacock with continue to grow to as many as 70 channels. No word as to whether Comcast will release its own break out version of channels that would stand alone from the rest of the Peacock app.
There may even be another reason as to why Comcast bought XUMO. At the Streaming Advisor we have a sneaking suspicion that Comcast could make any free content that would otherwise be available on Peacock available through XUMO as a way to work around not being on platforms like Roku or Fire TV. But that’s just us speculating.
A full list of Peacock’s supported devices is as follows:
Web Browsers:
Chrome 70+ (Windows/Mac)
Firefox 65+ (Windows/Mac)
MS Edge 40+ (Windows 10 or above)
Safari 12+ (Mac)
Mobile and Tablet Devices:
Android: 6.0 or above
iOS: 11 or above
Connected TVs, Game Consoles and Streaming Devices:
Android TV: Android 5.1
Apple TV: Apple TV HD (4th Generation or above) with tvOS 11 or above
Chromecast: 2nd Generation or above
LG Smart TV: LG WebOS 3.5 or above
Vizio TV: SmartCast 2.0 or 3.0 (from 2015 and newer)
Xbox One
Cable Provider Set Top Boxes:
Cox:
Contour Box with Voice Remote
Contour Stream Player
Xfinity:
XG1v1 (Arris)
XG1v3
XG1v4
XG2v2
XiD
Xi3
Xi5
Xi6
Flex
