NBCUniversal

They say the collaboration will make data-driven TV advertising possible and drive enhanced advertising outcomes for agencies and brands.

Group Black will exclusively work with NBCUniversal to scale and sell ads within Black-led content including Black-led comedies, cinema and dramas.

In partnership with FreeWheel, globally minded marketers now have access to global-to-local content from more than 190 countries spanning Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

Rod Aissa is leaving NBCUniversal after 11 years, most recently as EVP, entertainment unscripted content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. He informed his staff of his departure in a memo Friday. In the interim, Rachel Smith will take over Aissa’s role of leading the unscripted lifestyle and docuseries group, working alongside Corie Henson, EVP, entertainment unscripted content, who oversees competition and game shows.

NBCUniversal, Roku, TikTok and TalkShopLive on Thursday shared campaigns and results from partnerships built based on the big-box retailer’s partner program. Walmart Connect Partner Lab partnered with NBCUniversal to test a closed-loop media-powered ads for retail in live sports streaming. This will mark the first time that NBCUniversal’s live sports streaming inventory becomes available through a retail media network.

Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles is changing its name to Peacock Theater, and the open-air plaza next to it will be known as Peacock Place. The changes take effect July 11 as part of a multi-year naming rights deal between Peacock, NBCUniversal’s premium streaming service, and sports and live entertainment giant AEG.

The arrangement integrates Wells Fargo Credit Cards into NBCUniversal’s One Platform Commerce, providing exclusive benefits for Wells Fargo credit cardholders and shoppable content across Bravo’s Project Runway, Today’s “Jill’s Steals and Deals” and “Shark Tank” on CNBC.

NBCU is beginning a multi-platform marketing push, using the “Save the Date” theme, to get consumers amped up for the Olympics, which will kick off July 26 of next year. And to help it do so, the company is turning to some old friends including Dolly Parton, WWE star Roman Reigns and a minion.

At $1.66 a month, the discount is $30 off the annual $50 price for the base Peacock Premium package.

Mike Cavanagh, a veteran of the financial crisis, has just been given a leading part in the unending drama of Hollywood.

NBCUniversal shook up its ad-sales executive suite with just days to go before the company is slated to present its next slate of programing to advertisers. Linda Yaccarino, the company’s longtime chairman of advertising and partnerships, is leaving the company. She has entered talks to become CEO of Twitter, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mark Marshall, a veteran executive who leads advertising sales for all of NBCU’s national media properties, has been named interim chairman of ad sales for the company. He will report to Mark Lazarus who oversees NBCU’s TV and streaming businesses.

NBCUniversal’s global ad chair Linda Yaccarino has resigned, the company said Friday. The announcement comes a day after Elon Musk said via Twitter there would be a new CEO of the social media website, although he didn’t name the new person. Musk said in his tweet the person would start in about six weeks. Yaccarino yesterday was said to be in advanced talks for the role. (JohnStaleyPhoto.com)

NBC and Telemundo local FAST channels are now available on Amazon Fire TV and Echo Show devices.

“Precise measurement and accurate counting are the foundation of a healthy and high-functioning TV advertising ecosystem. When marketers have the right data, they can make the right decisions. That’s why we’re unifying our audiences and ushering in a modern-day approach to measurement for local advertisers. To better reflect today’s sophisticated consumer, we are vastly increasing the number of households we measure: We used to measure 1 in every 1,600-2,000 homes in a Local DMA. Now we’re going to measure 1 in every 2-5 homes—giving advertisers an unprecedented understanding of the true size and value of their audience, while also allowing them to pinpoint the exact audience they want to reach. And there’s more: With 48-hour TV measurement reporting at this scale, we’ll be able to help our clients optimize and improve the precision of their media buys in near real time.”

Ad sales president Mark Marshall (pictured) touts scale and precision.

Staffers at NBCUniversal Local’s experimental unit LX News got word Wednesday that they’d be shutting down. Some worry that it bodes darkly for news innovation that will connect with new generations of viewers.

NBCUniversal is winding down LX, a three-year-old network with the stated mission of delivering viewers “the stories you need with more sass and less suits.” People familiar with the decision said the nearly 40 workers affected by the move are being actively considered for new positions within NBCU.

The new agreement, NBCU says, “demonstrates the value of big media and big tech aligning to super-serve audiences the content they love and want, while providing incremental reach and scale for advertisers.”

At Peacock’s NewFront presentation Tuesday, NBCUniversal rolled out new commercial formats aimed at giving sponsors more attention and a better opportunity to interact with viewers. One of the new formats enables an advertiser to be everywhere NBCU’s. Called Spotlight Plus, the advertiser’s message shows up no matter what a viewer is watching, like a cross-platform roadblock, whether it’s an original film on Peacock, a drama on a linear network or a content on a third-party digital platform.

Jeff Shell, the ousted CEO of NBCUniversal, forfeited compensation valued at $43 million for 2022 after being fired for cause last Sunday. NBCU parent Comcast said in an SEC filing today:  “As previously disclosed, Mr. Shell’s employment was terminated with cause on April 23, 2023. As a result, he did not receive any supplemental payments or benefits in connection with his termination. He will receive only his accrued but unpaid base salary and vacation time, vested employee benefits and reimbursement for any unreimbursed business expenses in accordance with his employment agreement. Upon his termination, all unvested PSUs and RSUs and all vested and unvested stock options, which had an estimated fair value of $43.3 million as of the termination date, were forfeited and canceled.”

With Comcast President Mike Cavanagh now directly overseeing NBCU, Bank of America analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich asked during a Q&A whether his dual role should be viewed as a permanent solution. “The short answer to the question is me stepping in to oversee NBC is quite sustainable,” he said.

Shell’s surprising exit leaves NBCU without a permanent chief at the helm as the company navigates an increasingly complex set of circumstances, with TV viewers moving to on-demand streaming in such numbers that the economics of the business are eroding faster than executives can work to find new sources of revenue.

Jeff Shell, the chief executive of NBCUniversal and one of the media industry’s renowned executives, is leaving the company after an investigation into inappropriate conduct, parent company Comcast announced Sunday. In a brief statement, Shell said Sunday would be his last day after what he called “an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company.”

The pair has teamed to take domestic format rights to Destination X for their respective countries, having previously co-commissioned The Traitors, the Dutch format in which constestants have to guess who among them is “faithful” and who is secretly working against the rest.

The new deal means Wolf will remain with Universal TV until 2027. His previous pact, which was signed pre-pandemic in 2020 and came with three-season renewals for his slate of shows, was a five-year deal that a source at the time described as being the “largest deal in TV history.” Wolf has three franchises that make up nine scripted series on the air across two broadcast networks: NBC’s Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med; NBC’s Law & Order revival, Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime; as well as CBS’s FBI, FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International. All nine have already been renewed for the 2023-24 season.

Even in an uncertain national TV marketplace, NBCUniversal says its advertising sales for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are outpacing the previous Tokyo Summer Games. During a press conference on Tuesday, Dan Lovinger, president of Olympics/LA 2028 ad and sponsorship sales for NBCUniversal, said: “While still very early, I can report we are pacing well ahead at the same point in time of the recent summer games in Tokyo [which aired in the summer of 2023].”

She will be responsible for leading NBCUniversal’s One Platform sales efforts across the company’s national offices specifically focused on the western region, while driving revenue as well as strategic objectives for clients and partners.

As the television industry looks for better ways to measure viewers, NBCUniversal wants the audience metrics used to buy and sell advertising to take into account the quality of the video and how much it engages consumers. NBCU on Wednesday is holding its annual pre-upfront presentation highlighting its data and technology capabilities for advertisers. This year’s event is called One23.

During a pre-upfront period when networks are looking to separate themselves from the competition, NBCUniversal has invited its rivals to speak at its annual tech and data presentation in order to promote the Joint Industry Committee formed by programmers to create modern standards and a certification process for audience measurement.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit announced a reorganization of its ad sales unit under Linda Yaccarino, chairman of global advertising sales and partnerships. One big change puts ad sales president Mark Marshall in charge of converged teams responsible for selling the company’s linear, digital and streaming inventory. Marshall will also oversee a new unit looking to sell ads to small and midsized businesses.  The SMB unit will work closely with NBCU’s local sales division.

The newly formed Joint Industry Committee aims to set measurement, currency standards by an aggressive March 1 deadline. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

He tells analysts, “The ad market feels to me like it has stabilized a bit. We’re assuming it’s going to stay weak for the first half of this year and then recover, but who really knows, based on the macro economy.”

During Saturday’s broadcast of the NFL Wild Card game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Jacksonville Jaguars, NBCU kicked off its marketing campaign with a 20-second spot featuring Paris Hilton. Versions of the spot will run for the next few months across the company’s platforms.

Will Gonzalez has been promoted to EVP and chief data officer at NBCUniversal, where his role will expand to now oversee the research and decision sciences teams across television and streaming. In a memo sent to staff Wednesday, NBCUniversal television and streaming chairman Mark Lazarus explained that the company will be merging research teams —  which include applied analytics, data engineering, and data science — across Peacock as well as the entertainment networks, NBC Sports, and Telemundo.

Insiders disputed early accounts of the reductions being widespread and amounting to hundreds of positions. Instead, the tally is more in the dozens and does not involve every division. One additional element is the company’s voluntary retirement program process, which business units are factoring into their assessment of operations heading into 2023.