Peacock Rebuilds Its Phone App Around Sport, Short Videos and Plain-Language Search

Peacock is overhauling its mobile app, and the changes will put more live sport and short upright videos in front of people using their phones. Deadline reported the update on 11 November 2026.

The home screen will carry more sports. College basketball and golf are set to get the vertical video treatment, alongside NBA games that NBCUniversal streams under a long-term rights deal that began in 2025. Vertical video is footage made to fill a phone held upright, the way short social media clips are shot and watched.

Peacock says it pioneered vertical video for live sport, and the format has been on the service for nearly two years. The new version goes further. Vertical clips are expanding to cover more of the library, including NBC's singing competition The Voice.

The service is also adding microdramas, which are short, serialised drama episodes designed for a phone screen. One new microdrama title will land on Peacock each week.

Finding things should get easier too. A "jump back in" button will help viewers pick up whatever they were watching. Search is also gaining conversational AI, meaning people can type a question in everyday language instead of a exact title or actor's name.

Not everything is live yet. Testing is underway on many of the features, and they will be released and updated continuously through early 2027.

The changes come as Peacock reports steadier finances. The company said it recorded its second straight quarter of profitability in the third quarter of 2026. Its subscriber total held flat at 48 million over the same period. About 80% of subscribers are on the ad-supported tier, the cheaper option that includes advertising instead of none.

Peacock launched in 2020, and the phone app is now the place where most of these new formats will first appear. For people who watch on the go, the practical change is simple: live games and short clips will sit closer to the top of the screen. The company has not said how quickly every feature will reach every user.