NBCU and Comcast's new streaming service Peacock just isn't bold enough and they may lose the streaming wars. Here's what they should do instead.

• Comcast and NBCUniversal announced recently that the two companies plan to pull back the veil on their Peacock streaming service at an investor event on January 16.
• Mike Shields, the former advertising editor for Business Insider who is now CEO of Shields Strategic Consulting, argues that Peacock isn't bold enough and that NBCU should try to become the ad-supported premium video hub instead.
• It's true that this idea would require warring companies to work together. But for the viewer, it makes a lot of sense.
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Comcast and NBCU announced recently that the two companies plan to pull back the veil on their Peacock streaming service at an investor event on January 16.

Nobody asked me, but I'd reschedule.

It' s not that Peacock isn't a good idea or isn't ready. It's just not a bold enough play (parent company Comcast said earlier this week that it wants to spend $2 billion on the product).

It's just that Peacock isn't just NBCU's answer to the streaming wars. It's really something of a hail mary for the future of commercial television.

In fact, there are reasons to believe that if Peacock doesn't work, ad-supported television as we know it could be over sooner rather than later.

And a "Punky Brewster" reboot, as amazing as that sounds, won't change that.

WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey recently sat down with Recode's Peter Kafka to talk about next year's launch of HBO Max and the streaming future overall.

Kafka asked Stankey about ads in streaming, and whether we're seeing a permanent, generational shift away from interruption. In other words, once you start streaming without ads, can you ever go back?

"I think what we know about customers is they like a broad selection of content," Stankey said. "The broadest selection of content that will be available to a customer is if both subscriptions and advertising support the development and investment of content."

I tend to agree with Kafka - but Stankey made a very interesting argument. At some point, you're going to run out of old "Friends" libraries. And if old-fashioned, ad-supported TV isn't churning out hundreds of episodes of "Friends'' and "Seinfelds" and "Frasiers," how do you fill those streaming services?

That's why I'd advocate for Peacock to aim much higher than being NBCU's streaming play - and instead aspire to become the ad-supported premium video hub.

The ad-supported answer to Netflix, if you will.

The TV business needs help, despite bullish forecasts for 2020 thanks to the presidential race and the Olympics.

"It is time for the TV ad industry to come together because this is the first real evidence that there's a crack," former Twitter sales chief Adam Bain told Business Insider.

Of course, you might ask, didn't the industry already come together with Hulu? Essentially, Hulu was built to serve as a central consumer hub for last night's shows, where fans of all sorts of series - regular humans who don't want to think about what studio or network made what - could watch whatever they wanted.

To be sure, Hulu's a terrific product, and it's growing. But it's Disney's baby now, which inevitably means other TV companies aren't likely to support it in the same fashion over time. Like say, NBCU.

Thus, Peacock has a unique opening. So here's my (increasingly unrealistic) proposal:

• Besides NBCU's deep library, it should make a play for every library it can grab. Lock up everything by paying a bit more.
• NBCU should buy TubiTV.
• NBCU should buy or partner with Pluto TV! (Yes, I realized Viacom just bought Pluto. But now CBS and Viacom are one, and I'm guessing CBS All Access is going to be the company's priority going forward.)
• Here's where things get crazy: NBCU should consider building Peacock with Google. I know, I know. But those Google guys are pretty good at tech. And they can pull in millions of small advertisers.

(Ari Lewine, chief strategy officer at TripleLift, which is making a big push into the connected TV ad space, told me this whole idea makes no sense. He says even with fragmentation, CTV ads are easy to purchase via ad tech companies such as The Trade Desk. And he added that every CTV distributor believes that they're the ideal aggregator of content and demand - and won't be inclined to work together.

"This idea of a bundle, it's really a false assumption," he said. "Which of these companies is gonna concede this fight? You're thinking too much like a consumer.")

Fine. But hear me out. Why would NBCU ever even think about this? Well:

• Consumers don't want or need to search through 19 different AVOD apps on their TVs. This is so counterproductive, and makes just throwing on Netflix so much easier.
• Consumers need to be "trained" on how advertising on TV is going to work going forward. Shorter ads, fewer ads, interactive ads, whatever - ideally, that experience looks much better and is more respectful of their time. It needs to be consistent. That is much more likely to occur on a single platform.
• For brands, they'd theoretically get a scaled CTV play.
• Brands would also benefit from a single platform with standard newfangled ad, standard tech, and standard data and standard measurement.

Those are crucial factors in having ad dollars move to Peacock, and making it must-stream TV. Instead of just moving further away from TV.