In the ever-growing Streaming Wars, where platforms aim to destroy each other for the coveted subscriber dollars, content is the ammunition. If you have lots of ammo and a few big guns, you can do a lot of damage. And it appears that the “Harry Potter” film franchise is some heavy artillery, indeed.
According to NBCUniversal, fledgling streaming service, Peacock, is going to be the exclusive home of the “Harry Potter” film franchise for six months starting in October. That means, if you want to fire up the old computer machine (as well as your phone, tablet, and/or TV) to watch the Wizarding World and the various Hogwarts shenanigans, you’re gonna have to do so on Peacock.
Exclusive licensing agreements are par for the course in the Streaming Wars, but the situation surrounding “Harry Potter” is unique. You see, back when HBO Max launched earlier this year, the Warner Bros.-backed service heavily promoted the fact that the “Harry Potter” franchise was available on its streaming platform. In fact, when you launched HBO Max, there was a separate “channel” devoted to the eight-film franchise. But then it was announced that HBO Max isn’t necessarily keeping its film back catalog in perpetuity, as the DC superhero films and ‘Harry Potter’ would eventually be leaving the service for stretches of time. Little did we know, at the time, that meant the Wizarding World was going to the NBCUniversal competition.
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Ultimately, it’s hard to quantify how much the “Harry Potter” franchise will move the needle with potential Peacock subscribers. Will this be enough to get a family to install yet another streaming app? Or will they just deal with the fact that ‘Potter’ isn’t available right now and will eventually show back up on HBO Max? Or maybe they don’t have either HBO Max nor Peacock and they’ll just go to Netflix or Disney+ for their family-friendly needs.
But in a world where streaming services are looking for the most exclusives and big-name franchises as possible, this is clearly a good move for Peacock. And it makes HBO Max look a bit silly.