Could One Chicago move to NBC streaming service?

NBCUniversal is hinting at its own streaming service, so what does that mean for One Chicago? Could Chicago Fire, PD and Med finally be streamable?

One Chicago fans could experience a big change in 2019. Bloomberg is reporting that there may be an NBCUniversal streaming service on the way next year.

According to Bloomberg’s article, NBCUniversal boss Steve Burke dropped a possible hint in his Christmas message to employees, which said “maybe, just maybe next year we will announce our plan for OTT.”

OTT is short for “over the top,” or streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, the latter of which currently has the streaming rights to the One Chicago franchise.

That’s a pretty vague hint (from a note that wasn’t even intended for public consumption), but if it ends up being true, there would be major ramifications for Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, and Chicago Med viewers.

More from One Chicago Center

• Chicago Med star on 2024 cast changes: ‘Nice to have new faces’
• Here’s the perfect Chicago Fire episode to watch on Thanksgiving
• Ranking the 8 NCIS Thanksgiving episodes from worst to best
• Mark Harmon does NOT have plans to reprise Gibbs on NCIS
• One Chicago stars tease new seasons on IG: ‘Here we come’

One of the most frequently asked questions among One Chicago fans is how they can stream episodes online.

Under NBC‘s current deal with Hulu, fans can only stream the five most recent episodes of the current season—and nothing from past seasons.

Using the NBC on Demand feature through your cable provider also provides some options to watch recent episodes on your TV, but you still can’t go back and catch up on previous seasons either.

Right now, the only way to see more than the last five episodes is to purchase episodes on DVD, iTunes or Amazon Video.

Watch One Chicago on fuboTV: Watch over 67 live sports and entertainment channels with a 7-day FREE trial!

If an NBCUniversal streaming service happens next year, then presumably the entire franchise will migrate from Hulu to the new platform. And NBCU, having access to every episode of every show, could make all of them available for streaming—the complete library fans have been asking for.

But don’t get too excited just yet! Being able to stream Chicago PD, Chicago Med and Chicago Fire would come at a price—literally.

Fans would have to pay to subscribe to any NBCUniversal streaming service. For comparison, CBS has its own service, CBS All Access, which costs $5.99 per month for a commercials-included plan and $9.99 per month for a “commercial-free plan” which isn’t really (their FAQ says “select shows have promotional interruptions”).

Do you want to spend an extra $6-10 a month on top of your existing TV package to watch past episodes?

After all, you could take the $40 you’d spend on four months of streaming access, and apply that to buying the whole season digitally on iTunes or physically on DVD—then you would own them permanently.

The current setup, while limited, is also free.

Then there’s the “big picture” question of fans having to shell out extra as streaming platforms keep growing and pulling apart the online content pool (brands like Disney and BBC America are pulling their content off Netflix and Hulu to start their own services, with their own separate price tags).

So for One Chicago viewers, an NBCUniversal streaming service would give them the acccess to episodes that they’ve been clamoring for, but fans should also be aware that it would come with needing to pay a little extra.

For the latest Chicago Fire season 7 spoilers and news, plus more on the entire series, follow the Chicago Fire category at One Chicago Center.