'Homicide: Life On The Street’ Finally Coming To Peacock In August
A streaming white whale has been conquered. But at a cost.
There are some shows that have been white whales, nigh impossible for streaming, usually due to music rights. In recent months, some of them have been conquered, like Moonlighting, L.A. Law, and Northern Exposure. There was one other notably absent series whose demand to resolve all the hurdles skyrocket after the death of one of its stars, Andre Braugher in December, the latest of four in a three year span: Homicide: Life on the Street. The seven-season run and finale TV movie will start streaming on Peacock on August 19.
While it was a mystery for the last month where exactly it would land, the answer for the NBC series from Universal TV and distributed by NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution in the U.S. ended up pretty simple, as NBCUniversal owns Peacock. David Simon, author of the source material Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets on which the show was based, teased back in June that the journey was heating up “Word is that NBC has managed to finally secure the music rights necessary to sell Homicide: Life On The Streets to a streaming platform. Andre [Braugher], Richard [Belzer], Yaphet [Kotto], Ned [Beatty], and so many others who labored on that wonderful show on both sides of the camera will soon regain a full share of their legacy. Stay tuned for more details.” He also reiterated music rights as the hurdle, since the contracts negotiated for the 1993-1999 series could not foresee streaming as another platform for the show to play on to include it in such contracts.
Its absence from linear reruns, even as reruns of peer procedurals like New York Undercover returned after long absences meant an entire generation would mostly grow to love Braugher through his work as Captain Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and younger fans of Law & Order: SVU, a franchise whose cable presence has been constant, currently between USA and Ion, couldn’t access Belzer’s earlier years as John Munch as easily outside of a crossover Homicide did with the original Law & Order.
The series, created by Paul Attanasio and had Tom Fontana as head writer and showrunner followed the detective work of the homicide department in Baltimore. In addition to the previously mentioned quartet, Homicide starred Melissa Leo, Giancarlo Esposito, Daniel Baldwin, Jon Polito, Clark Johnson, Kyle Secor, Reed Diamond, Michelle Forbes, Peter Gerety, Isabella Hofmann, Toni Lewis, Michael Michele, Max Perlich, Jon Seda and Callie Thorn. Its 122 episodes and film have been remastered to HD and 4K, which has since been clarified that it will be in a 16:9 aspect ratio and not the original 4:3.
Sources: Deadline (1, 2) Samuel Adams