• by Wayne Friedman , December 27, 2019

With NBC’s Peacock -- a premium video service -- set to launch next year, its parent company Comcast Corp. is in talks to buy Xumo, a free, ad-supported video streaming service, according to a report.

Xumo would boost carriage for the new NBC premium service -- which intends to be ad-supported, but include a commercial-free option.

In April, Xumo said it had 5.5 million monthly active users.

The report of the deal was published in The Wall Street Journal.

Comcast representatives did not return messages to Television News Daily by press time.

Xumo has deals for carriage with set-top box/smart TV streaming service Roku, as well direct deals with smart TV manufacturers such as Vizio, Panasonic and Samsung. Last year, it inked another TV set carriage deal with LG.

Xumo also has a deal with Comcast for carriage on its Xfinity service.

The company reportedly set a goal to reach 80% of U.S. homes by the end of 2019.

Xumo has around 200 digital and TV channels for streaming, including ABC News Live, CBS News, NBC News, HIstory, PGA Tour.

In an effort to up its premium streaming future, ViacomCBS bought Pluto TV, another free, ad-supported service, for $340 million in January. Pluto has 20 million monthly active users.