NBCUniversal Wraps Upfront Sales Process, Reporting “Modest Growth” Driven By Sports, Peacock & Digital

NBCUniversal has wrapped its upfront sales process, reporting “modest growth across its portfolio” driven by sports, Peacock and digital platforms.

The Comcast-owned media giant doesn’t break out specific figures for ad revenue, but the upfront marketplace overall is worth about $17.5 billion, according to a recent estimate by eMarketer. Ad dollars are continuing to migrate from linear TV to streaming and digital.

NBCU’s sports ad troops achieved the highest level of upfront commitments ever, paced by double-digit year-over-year growth in Sports Digital. Hispanic sports ad spending, with Telemundo as the centerpiece, jumped 20%. 

Entertainment & News held steady with the prior year’s upfront, highlighted by strength at Bravo and in late night and news.

Peacock hit its highest upfront level yet and has posted 40% growth over the past three years. On Comcast’s first-quarter earnings call in April, President Mike Cavanagh, who oversees NBCU, said Peacock is “seeing traction” from its blend of entertainment and live sports. The service had 34 million subscribers as of March 31 and reported $1.1 million in revenue in the first quarter.

“This past year, we focused every investment and innovation on driving media effectiveness for our clients,” NBCU ad and partnership chairman Mark Marshall said in a statement provided to Deadline. “Our engaging content provides the ultimate canvas for our advertisers to tell their brand stories to their consumers. And in this year’s upfront, NBCUniversal saw growth in advertising commitments across its portfolio in key business areas including strategic audiences, live programming, and streaming—demonstrating the value of our storytelling and the strength of our powerful tech stack to the marketplace.”