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That’s a wrap for NBCUniversal.
Today, the company announced it had closed upfront talks, becoming the first major publisher to cross the finish line in what’s been the slowest upfront season in years.
Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, NBCU is ending its 2023 upfront negotiations with total cash commitments that are “roughly in line with last year,” according to the company. The 2022 upfront reached $7 billion in commitments, becoming the company’s highest-grossing upfront in its history.
Demand increased in categories such as pharma, insurance, CPG and wireless. Volume was also roughly in line with the previous year’s.
Sports; Peacock; tentpole events; premium content; advanced, digital and data-driven advertising; Hispanic and experiential marketing drove this year’s talks.
In particular, sports was up nearly double-digits when compared to the prior year, with digital properties seeing a record 50% growth driven by the increase of sports on Peacock. Among other highlights, the ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup (Telemundo has broadcast rights) doubled advertising revenue vs. FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 and welcomed a record-breaking number of advertisers across auto, connectivity and wireless.
Peacock was up 30% in upfront commitments when compared to last year and has had 60% growth in the last two years. Additionally, Telemundo experienced its fourth straight year of growth at the upfront, nearly reaching double-digit growth and generating its highest volume since 2019-2020.
NBCUniversal’s programmatic growth is up more than 50% year over year, and the company has seen a shift to data-informed buying across linear and digital with key categories including insurance, real estate, entertainment, travel and retail growing to one-third of total linear Adsmart, the advanced advertising solutions that power audience-based media activation for NBCU’s One Platform. That’s a growth of 25% year over year.
Thus far, the company hasn’t revealed whether its CPMs (cost per thousand viewers reached) increased or decreased, with wide speculation that the slow upfront meant advertisers could expect rollbacks for 2023.
In 2022, the company received CPM increases in the high single digits.
Tentpole events
Additionally, tentpoles highlighted during NBCUniversal’s upfront week presentation in May, which included this year’s BravoCon, 2024 Olympics in Paris and the SNL 50th Anniversary exceeded company expectations, drawing strong interest.
