Mark Marshall NBCUniversal Upfront
NBCUniversal hosted its 2023 Upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall, headlined by Mark Lazarus, Chairman of NBCUniversal Television & Streaming; Susan Rovner, Chairman of Entertainment Content, NBCUniversal Television & Streaming, and Mark Marshall, Interim President of Global Advertising and Partnerships, NBCUniversal. The event began with Ted the Bear from the company’s popular film franchise, who will soon have his own series on Peacock.
“Whichever way you look at it, Comcast and NBCUniversal are built for the future. As we see other companies in the industry changing their structure or strategy to reflect what we’ve been doing here, one thing is very clear and that is that NBCUniversal is uniquely poised to link media, content, and technology to amplify our beloved IPs. An example: Super Mario Bros, the first million-dollar blockbuster of 2023: if you want to see it in the cinema, we have Fandango; if you want to watch it at home, it’s on Peacock first then anywhere else and after that, it’ll go on our channels; you want to experience it firsthand, you can go see it in one of our theme parks. But it’s not just scaled and reach, but the ability to bring it all together for our advertisers. This is what sets us apart from the competition,” said Lazarus.
Among the new content announced is: for Peacock, the action comedy Twisted Metal; the second season of Doctor Death, based on the podcast Wondery with Edgar Ramírez and Mandy Moore; the series Apples Never Fall with Sam Neill and Annette Benning, and Those About to Die; for NBC, the celebration of 50 years of SNL with more than 900 shows produced; the comedy Extended Family with John Cryer; the drama Found with Mark-Paul Gosselaar; and the 10-episode series, The Americas, narrated by Tom Hanks, with music by Hans Zimmer and produced by the BBC.
Marshall closed NBCU’s Upfront presentation by commenting that the advertising market this year is going to be extremely competitive, “which means advertisers need every impression works better than ever. This is exactly why we built One Platform: to be the only advertiser-centric ecosystem that gives you more consumer touchpoints, smarter technology, bigger partnerships, and the best sales impact and results for your business,” he emphasized.
