It’s twofold. One was just doing the presentation. The other part of it was also trying to figure out and convey to marketers what your schedule was going to look like, knowing that there were going to be some delays in production. Fortunately, we had planned ahead, so we had a pretty good fourth quarter of original content that still existed.
The idea of stability and knowing what was coming allowed us to put on a much more complete show this year than we had last year. And again, some of the other networks were even impacted more than we were. So we felt good about it.
It also allowed us to find opportunities to tell different stories, like being able to play the world premiere of the new Wicked trailer that will launch in the fourth quarter. That was a new treat. And we had never had Universal Pictures as part of the upfront, so that was something different for this year.
Yes, the Wicked trailer got a lot of buzz. How are marketers and advertisers getting involved?
We’ll have the behind-the-scenes special that will launch a couple of days before the film on NBC. But we also work closely with our partners at Universal Pictures and try to find ways to build partnerships that will include not only Universal but also how we extend that partnership in different areas. And then behind that is when it finally goes to Peacock in that pay-one window. We have marketers that will work with us to be able to run in that as well.
NBCU shared that the Olympics would have multiple Super Bowls’ worth of impressions. Can you speak more about those numbers?
The Olympics are part of the core and the culture of this company. I think it probably is the best indicator of being able to put together a show that actually uses all of our on-air talent, but also allows the consumer to program their own experience as well. So in primetime, you’re going to have these big events, over 200 million people will watch in aggregate, but you have Mike Tirico in primetime telling you the stories of what happened during the day, the behind-the-scenes stories.
You’re also going to have live support throughout the entire day across linear and Peacock. And on Peacock, you’re gonna be able to program your own experience with host feeds as well as the quad experience, where you’ll be able to watch four different events all at once. So, the idea of personalization and scale all in one event.
What’s been the initial feedback on the upfront event?
I’ve had many lunches and dinners since that point and been with many marketers and agency people, and I think everyone was appreciative of the show and the bigness and the spectacle of what it was. It was a nice welcome back—coming back from Covid-19, then you had the impact of the strikes—this was the first big one. So I think everyone felt great about it.