‘Two and a Half Men’ to Stream Exclusively on NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Instead of HBO Max
Another modern-classic sitcom has found its streaming home — but it’s not going to the home that produced it. “Two and a Half Men” will stream exclusively on NBCUniversal’s forthcoming streaming service, Peacock, the platform announced during a Comcast investor event in New York on Thursday.
The Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones — and later Ashton Kutcher — comedy, which ran for 12 seasons from 2003 to 2015 on CBS, was produced by Warner Bros. Television. As you may have heard, that studio’s parent company, WarnerMedia, will be launching its own streaming service, HBO Max, this spring.
The fact that the streaming rights to “Two and a Half Men” were acquired by a direct competitor — which will be the first SVOD to house the comedy — is a surprise, given that HBO Max has snapped up the rights to its other classics, like “Friends” and “The West Wing,” from Netflix and paid more than $500 million to be the home of its now-ended “Big Bang Theory,” in an attempt to stock the platform’s library ahead of its May launch.
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An individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap that “Two and a Half Men” will continue to air in syndication on local stations, as well as IFC, AMC, Paramount and TV Land.
Terms of the streaming deal were not disclosed. Representatives for Peacock and Warner Bros. declined TheWrap’s request for comment.
In a much less surprising deal, Peacock announced it will also be streaming the full library from Dick Wolf’s currently airing “Law and Order: SVU,” “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago P.D.,” and “Chicago Med” series, and several seasons of the now-ended “Law and Order” and “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” — but not exclusively. These dramas are produced by Wolf’s Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television, so it makes much more sense that they’d fly over to Peacock and to also continue to stream on other platforms.
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Additionally, NBCUniversal announced it has acquired the exclusive streaming rights to Paramount Network’s currently-airing Kevin Costner-drama “Yellowstone” from ViacomCBS (yes, just streaming rights, “Yellowstone” will still air its new episodes on Paramount Network) and “The George Lopez Show,” another Warner Bros-produced series, which ran for six seasons from 2002 to 2007 on ABC.
Previously announced classic series heading to Peacock include: “30 Rock,” “Bates Motel,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Cheers,” “Chrisley Knows Best,” “Covert Affairs,” “Downton Abbey,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Frasier,” “Friday Night Lights,” “House,” “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “King of Queens,” “Married…With Children,” “Monk,” “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “Parenthood,” “Psych,” “Royal Pains,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Superstore,” and “Will & Grace.”
The upcoming streaming service will launch on April 15 for Comcast Xfinity X1 and Flex subscribers. It will become available nationwide on July 15. Peacock will also have two separate tiers of service, both of which will be free to Comcast and Cox’s 24 million subscribers.
Check back with TheWrap for additional news about Peacock that comes out of Comcast’s investor day.
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