During the 1990s, there was one crime drama everyone tuned into. It was all about Homicide: Life on the Street. The NBC series remains a fan-favorite, and fans couldn’t understand why they couldn’t stream it online.
When NBCUniversal created its own streaming platform, Peacock, it seemed like the perfect time to add the ‘90s series to the list of streaming favorites. That didn’t happen, and it turned out that it wasn’t just something strategic to make people buy the DVDs.
It all came down to licensing. When the series was originally created, the idea of streaming wasn’t even a pipedream. So, the contracts were never set up for future airing of the series. The music involved needed to be licensed again to be able to get the show on a streaming platform.
That took much longer than you might thing. Contracts would need to be issued for everyone involved in the original series. Then there would have been some artists who would want more than others. Homicide: Life on the Street wanted to keep the original music intact rather than find something to replace it, and we know that it’s worth the wait.
Homicide: Life on the Street heading to Peacock in August
There’s great news, though. Peacock is going to be the streaming home, and there’s a release date! TVLine shares that Homicide: Life on the Street will be available to stream as of Monday, Aug. 19.
All seven seasons and the wrap up movie will be available to watch. In some great news, everything has been remastered into HD and 4K to stream in the higher quality for the first time ever.
This is just for the U.S. streaming. It’s not yet clear if and when the series will head to international platforms. When it does, it will be on different platforms as Peacock hasn’t come out internationally just yet.