TV Q&A: Will Peacock no longer be free for Comcast’s Xfinity subscribers?

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.

Q: I turned on Comcast’s Xfinity and it says Peacock will no longer be free after June 26. On screen, it says you can order it for $5 per month. Guess we have to call Comcast to order it?

— Peter, via voicemail

Rob: If you have been getting ad-supported Peacock Premium for free and you don’t want to pay for it, you don’t have to do anything. You will not be charged for it unless you order it (the other option is ad-free Peacock Premium Plus for $10 per month).

My understanding is customers will be notified of next steps via customer marketing and their billing statements this month (a Peacock rep declined to provide details for me to share). It seems likely that one will be able to subscribe online at peacocktv.com or via Xfinity’s set-top box.

Q: With this month’s return of ABC’s “The Wonder Years,” I was curious if the company canceled the show and is just burning off the episodes or if the program is now a “summer series”?

— Chad, via email

Rob: When ABC renewed the “Wonder Years” reboot in May 2022, it was supposed to return at midseason during the 2022-23 TV season. Then last November, ABC announced “Wonder Years” wouldn’t air until summer so technically it is a summer series.

Whether that was a strategic decision to bolster its summer lineup or a choice to do less harm to its in-season schedule’s ratings, only the bigwigs at ABC know for sure. We’ll get a better sense of ABC’s intent after this summer when it either renews or cancels “Wonder Years.”

Results for the season two premiere were not encouraging. The show averaged a .42 in the age 18-49 demographic rating and 2.4 million viewers per episode in its first season, but the second-season premiere was off 69% in the demo (down to a .2) and off 38% in total viewers (2 million).

Q: On June 18, the new series “Ridley” was to premiere on WQED-TV. Instead, they pre-empted all programming with the endless, tiresome pledge drives. There was no announcement of this. WQED has become a low-rent operation.

— Ira, via email

Rob: It is unusual for WQED to pre-empt regular PBS programming, particularly the premiere of a new series.

A WQED spokeswoman confirmed the issue was yet another technical error following the January pre-emption of Saturday morning cooking shows and the September 2022 pre-emption of “PBS Newshour.”

“The problem was caused by our master sync generator reverting to standard time at 2 a.m. on Sunday. This caused all playlists to be off by one hour. Our executive director of engineering spent a few hours [Monday] getting all playlists synced up at 2 p.m.,” said WQED’s Delaney Healey. “‘Ridley’ was scheduled and supposed to air but this technical issue bumped it.”

If there was a human at the switch instead of a computer – or even a human watching who might notice the station not airing programming as scheduled – perhaps the problem would have been discovered and rectified before “Ridley” was set to premiere at 8 p.m. Sunday.

When incoming WQED CEO Jason Jedlinski arrives at the station next month, one hopes he will prioritize getting WQED back to its basic function of reliably airing programming as scheduled.

As for “Ridley,” the premiere was already scheduled to rerun at 7 p.m. June 25, which gives interested viewers the opportunity to see episode one before episode two premieres at 8 p.m. June 25.

For viewers seeking the pre-empted first episode of the final season of “Endeavour,” WQED-TV will air it at 9 p.m. June 22, bumping “Slavery by Another Name” and “Fannie Lou Hamer: Stand Up”.

Q: Why did the Tony Awards cut eight categories from the broadcast? The Oscars did that and had a new backside ripped open. Don’t these people deserve as much recognition as the other categories? Why didn’t they make room for at least the acceptance speeches?

— Peter, via Facebook

Rob: This isn’t new. It’s at least the second year that “The Tony Awards: Act One,” which included some award presentations, has streamed on Paramount+ for an hour before the Tony telecast on CBS.

I suspect the Tony folks understand their awards show is on thin ice, probably doesn’t make money for CBS and they can’t really afford to make waves. Despite initial reports that preliminary ratings for this year’s telecast rose slightly, later final ratings showed a slight decline year-to-year even though it was one of the more rousing, entertaining awards shows in recent memory (the bad banter jettisoned due to the writers’ strike made the telecast better than usual).