NBC News is ending Peacock Productions, the in-house production company that was the force behind shows like MSNBC’s American Swamp, co-hosted by Katy Tur and Jacob Soboroff.
Launched in July 2007, Peacock Prods. produced programming for several networks inside the NBC family, including USA, the now-defunct Cloo, CNBC, and MSNBC as well as outside the company for general cable entertainment networks like A&E, Nat Geo, TLC, Investigation Discovery, History, and Discovery (including Nik Wallenda‘s Skyscraper Live).
The company had become increasingly focused on non-fiction, documentaries and true crime in recent years.
Variety was first to report the news of Peacock Prods.’ shuttering, and an NBC News spokesperson confirmed it to TVNewser.
“NBC News is shuttering Peacock Productions, effective March 2. NBC News is shifting its documentary strategy to an entirely new model, consistent with industry trends, and unfortunately the existing operation is no longer viable. We are working with affected employees to help find positions around NBC Universal.”
So what will happen to those staffers? NBC News is expanding its brand in other ways, and perhaps they’ll be given roles with NBC News Now, the company’s live streaming news service, or to the NBC News unit that will be producing twice-daily news programming for Quibi, the mobile-first content platform founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The NBC News-Quibi partnership, which is being run by former Vice News Tonight ep Madeliene Haeringer, is set to launch in April.