After 100 Years, NBCU is Still Betting on 'Old School' Broadcast Moments

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Mark Marshall is an adman and grew up in a family embedded in the business. Not exactly what you'd see from John Ham in Madmen, but his grandfather was living and breathing it every day. And certainly that spirit was passed down because Mark plays a key role in today's industry as chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBC Universal. meaning he oversees NBC Universal's entire portfolio of linear networks, digital and streaming platforms, distribution and partnerships, and relationships. Mark, thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:00:35]>> Thank you very much for having me.

[00:00:36]Excited to be here.

[00:00:37]>> We have a lot to talk about. One of which obviously is going to be advertising, but I want to start by taking us back a little bit. Can you tell me about what ads sounded like or looked like on the TV or radio when you were growing up as a kid? Mhm. That's a good one. Uh if you were in Chicago, it was 5882300 Empire. That was Empire carpets. Like that was that was it.

[00:01:00]>> But there is something about advertising like you still remember those ads that you saw all the time.

[00:01:05]>> Um and now one of the things that's interesting is because advertising now is you could be seeing a different ad that I'm seeing when we're watching streaming. Not everyone's seeing the same ads at the same time. So, it's a different experience. Just as shows, people watching at different times, ads are at different times now. And so, it's a different world than what we grew up on that side of it. But I'm not old enough to think like it was radio ads. I know that there was TV ads. Uh, >> we had radio ads, too, over in the Midwest. Exactly. I was in Minnesota for a while. Did you all have Menards in >> Oh, yeah. Love Menards. Yeah, >> that's another one. Love. Save more money at Menards.

[00:01:40]>> Save more money.

[00:01:42]>> You know it. Yeah.

[00:01:43]>> So, when you were growing up though, was there ever a point where that really impacted what you were watching or seeing or what you were choosing to watch? Was there certain ads on certain stations that you were like, "Yeah, were you paying attention to those things?" I guess >> I was. I was. My grandfather was in advertising and so he uh ran the ad account for Brown Foreman liquors. And so when growing up we had everything >> like our coolers, our umbrella, everything was some branding of some liquor, which my mom wasn't a big fan of. So rolling downstairs in a t-shirt that says, you know, Jack Daniels in fourth grade, uh you're not going to school in that. Yeah. Right. So, uh, advertising was always kind of in my blood of what it was. And so, uh, you know, you would sit next to grandpa and he would evaluate the ads, ask you your opinions of the ads. So, uh, it was just in the blood. So, that's how I ended up in this world.

[00:02:42]>> It's in the family. Now, I read somewhere that a few years ago you took your son to watch the NBC Sunday Night Football in the studio, their their broadcast. Is there a sense that you're passing that down? Does he have any interest? Your son or your daughter?

[00:02:56]>> No, he he graduates in a couple weeks uh from Boulder. Uh CU Boulder, he's going to be in finance. And then our daughter who is out at uh Chapman University, she's the creative, so she's in their film school out there. Um so she'll be on the creative side. So maybe she touches our industry. Um but he definitely will not on on that side. But I I have gotten to do some cool things with both of them.

[00:03:20]between SNL uh with my daughter as well as Sunday Night Football with my son.

[00:03:25]So, there's been some good ones.

[00:03:26]>> You're positioned at a really interesting interesting intersection between advertising, but also entertainment, sports. Walk me through a day in Mark Marshall's corner office.

[00:03:36]What's your day-to-day look like in terms of this position? No, >> it you know what I I do say I am s I I think I have the best job of anyone because essentially I get to learn about every company that we deal with and their business. So one meeting may be with you know McDonald's, the next one is with a financial services company and you start, you know, the next one's an auto and you're learning why they're launching this car at this time, who they're targeting. So, it's it's my favorite part of my job is getting to learn about all these different businesses. And internally, I'm lucky that we have this wide portfolio that we have, you know, everything from Telmundo to NBC to Bravo, from sports, entertainment, news, uh, late night. I I it's I feel very blessed and lucky that I get to do this every day.

[00:04:26]>> Well, that's what I want to talk about.

[00:04:27]NBC is turning 100. Yes.

[00:04:29]>> Which is massive, obviously.

[00:04:32]What does that sort of legacy of storytelling mean for advertisers, especially coming up on something like Upfront in May?

[00:04:39]>> Yeah, it's I mean, we're very proud of, you know, the first ad that ever ran was on NBC. Uh the first Super Bowl, first baseball game, first World Cup, all happened on NBC. So it's interesting if you go back and you think about some streamers have launched they didn't want advertising initially eventually started to launch advertising we've never existed without advertising advertising has always been at the ethos of what we are >> so even when we launched Peacock we came out we said we were going to have you know Avod so advertising in our uh our first streaming service and they were people were like why would you go with advertising everyone's going the other way well eventually everyone Everyone came back to the advertising side. So that dual revenue stream of subscriptions and advertising is important, but for us, you know, there's nothing we do that doesn't take into consideration of what it does for two constituenties, our viewer and our advertisers.

[00:05:38]>> That's really interesting that you say that. I guess I do remember a time when the whole kind of draw of streaming was no more commercials. Like we're done with that. For viewers, is there anything that you've done to kind of try to change the experience where it's not annoying and a commercial comes on and everyone gets up and walks away? Is there a strategy behind keeping people in their seats? Maybe.

[00:05:59]>> I think, you know, I think if we're honest with ourselves, especially on the cable side, I think we made viewers viewing really a struggle. like when you're you're having to sit through, you know, and I won't name networks, but some networks have five, six minute commercial breaks in movies on the weekends on a cable channel. Um, that's not sustainable overall. And so we made that experience uh unwell. So now when we launched Peacock, we launched it with only one minute breaks. And so you only have a one minute break. And so there's a clock up there that lets you know that that's what it is. So, we focus on the ad experience and part of that ad experience is having the low ad load, but also like pause ads, other ads that actually are interactive that that play along with it. That advertising doesn't have to be a distraction and becomes part of the experience as well.

[00:06:51]>> You mentioned before, and I think this ties into part of the experience, right, when we started, that not everyone's seeing the same ad at the same time anymore. What has that done for advertisers? and then talk a little bit about what that means for somebody watching TV.

[00:07:04]>> Yeah, I I think part of it with advertisers, I don't think we all realized uh that idea of communal viewing wasn't just about the programming. It was also about the ad.

[00:07:16]So, for example, you know, the new Mario Brothers movie is coming out. You need that movie to be seen on that Friday.

[00:07:23]You need people to go there that opening weekend. So the idea of having that that being able to be seen the following Tuesday does nothing for that advertiser. So that idea of being able to have that in in real time ad matters as much as being able to see a live sporting event or whatever that might be. And that idea of did you see that ad last night? It you don't get that as much in today's environment on this digital side. The linear side you still have that.

[00:07:51]>> And let's let's talk a little bit about that linear side too. about 70% of NBC Universal's programming is live. From an advertising perspective, is that a strategic choice that you're doubling down on, really attacking those live moments?

[00:08:05]>> It is. It is. We I think advertisers have leaned into this because of that communal area. And when we look at it, eight out of 10 people say that they believe live programming actually makes them feel more connected to the world as a whole. And so I think you see that with the Today Show, you see that with the Tonight Show. Those have always been at the core of everything we've done.

[00:08:28]But where we've actually doubled down is in more of the live specials, more live events. You know, the Macy's Day Parade, for example, it has been on, you know, it's this is the hundth year of the Macy's Day Parade, which same year as NBC, we were the first people that televised it, and this year was its highest watch ever.

[00:08:46]>> Really?

[00:08:47]>> Isn't that crazy? and across linear and digital people are watching it differently but people are craving that idea of all of us together that communal viewing experience which I think we've gotten away from but we're starting to program more of it because this is where viewers are really wanting to show up >> and our advertisers kind of meeting the viewers halfway too also biting on this idea of like we can harness this energy of linear in live >> absolutely and the ads perform better in live because of that they're engaged age. They're watching it. They showed up at a specific time. They're not watching it, you know, as background noise as occasionally my daughter would do. Uh, but it is it is something that you're showing up specifically for. So, you're remembering the show, you're remembering the ad in a different way.

[00:09:34]>> Live also creates the sense of urgency to kind of you see something and you're like, I need to go book my tickets to this movie right now. I need to buy this thing. But it also creates a sense of risk from an advertiser perspective. Is that a hurdle that you try to ever have to work around when there's obviously this idea that something could go wrong and the brand could be in the picture?

[00:09:55]>> Oh, yeah. Well, it not that it could go wrong as much as you just, you know, the Super Bowl, you have 135 million people watching all at once.

[00:10:04]>> Uh, you hope everything works just fine in those moments. But it's not as much the brand because we have brand safety.

[00:10:10]It has to go through standards. I'm not as worried about that. I'm just always worried of like could anything possibly go wrong? You know, the Olympics you're on for 17 days and things can go wrong.

[00:10:21]Fortunately, our production team is the best in the biz. We have not had that.

[00:10:25]But other some streamers who have gotten into live business lately have had some struggles with some of those.

[00:10:32]>> Let's talk more about sports. You mentioned the Olympics. I'm very excited to talk about this.

[00:10:36]>> Getting the NBA back on NBC is a huge deal.

[00:10:40]>> Yes. And it's an honest argument internally for pursuing those rights.

[00:10:45]What was what was the kind of push to get the NBA back?

[00:10:49]>> Well, I I had been at Turner Sports for 15 years before I came back to NBC. So, I sold the uh NBA for all those years.

[00:10:57]So, it only took me 12 years to to get it back in our world. Um, >> perfect.

[00:11:02]>> But the NBA is a very unique property in that it attracts a different audience.

[00:11:06]It's a younger audience. It's a more diverse audience. It's an audience that focuses on social and culture, uh, clothing there. It's a different than what we have currently. So, I knew it would bring a different audience to it.

[00:11:19]I also, >> when we had it on Thursday nights on TNT, really, you were promoting the weekend and the movies that were running on the weekend. When we got the TNT or when we got that package on NBC and having Monday nights having Peacock, Tuesday nights on NBC, it allowed us to promote the rest of the week differently than we were able to before and then Sunday night football ends and then Sunday night basketball starts. So you start to develop this flywheel of entertainment and sports programming where people are showing up for these live programming. How do you keep them there for the rest of the week as well?

[00:11:56]>> Interesting. They're all sort of complementing each other, if you will, directionally.

[00:11:59]>> And then you saw like a benefit like Jimmy Fallon's, you know, ratings go up on Tuesday nights after the game. So it local news goes up after the game. So there's a benefit. This live instantaneous audience benefits everyone on that, including the advertisers.

[00:12:15]>> Something else that I've heard many folks actually at NBC talk about is that live sports create these old school advertising broadcast moments. these moments that people are really, we talked about this before, tuning in for but remembering for someone like me thinking about advertising. What does that mean? This kind of old school broadcast moment.

[00:12:36]>> Yeah. Well, I think probably with the NBA, us bringing back Michael Jordan as a Chicago guy who grew up with uh Jordan, uh having him, you know, at the upfront, you know, announcing that he was going to be part of our telecast and our broadcast team was pretty exciting last year. But I think people are again are are craving that idea of >> sports unite us. You know, that's what we talk about with our friends, we talk about with our family. It's what connects us to our community.

[00:13:05]>> And so sports has that unique ability.

[00:13:08]So for us at NBC, how does that help?

[00:13:11]How do we talk to the sports fan to make sure they're staying for the local news?

[00:13:15]That's their local community. How do we talk in that right voice that's going to help there? But I would say as it relates to the old school piece of it, um, you know, bringing back John Tesh and the music for Round Ball Rock, uh, was a was a good one. A little nod to the nostalgia of it, but with a whole new group of athletes who are playing the game right now.

[00:13:37]>> I really like that you keep mentioning this idea of local news. I think it's something that for a lot of folks, it's lost on them. They forget that they also have their local NBC stations.

[00:13:46]Absolutely. Um, >> and I can name I've lived across the country. I can name a number of them and and weather people I remember and news anchors growing up that I remember. Are those stations that y'all are thinking about when you're thinking about advertising and and you know bringing in money that supports everybody under the NBCU umbrella?

[00:14:04]>> Absolutely. And I think you're right when you say, you know, you've lived in multiple cities. You know, I think back to Chicago and Channel 5 in Chicago and you know those anchors, they're part of your history. They're part of your growing up. That's your connection to your community. That's where you were learning about the community. My wife's father was a broadcaster for 50 years in Chicago on ABC. Um, so not in the NBC family, but we still love him, >> right?

[00:14:34]>> But like you see people will will still come up to him and he's in his 80s now and talk to him and quote stories from 40 years ago that they remember. There's just such that connection in the local communities. So every time we're doing something, we want to focus on how does that not only our ono stations but our affiliates as well across the country.

[00:14:55]How do we tie into that?

[00:14:57]>> Is there still this idea even though you know you work for one of the largest legacy media companies in the world that this understanding that you were in people's living rooms and what does that responsibility feel like on the advertising side? Well, we we take it very seriously and you know we are very lucky that we have NBC and Telmundo, two different broadcast networks that have the same standards that the intention is how do we inform and how do we entertain across every piece of our organization?

[00:15:27]How do we use sports to drive new viewers in that? But the local piece of it and the responsibility we feel to educate and inform is really taken seriously across all of our organizations. And plus, we have a very high standard of what ads we will take in there because we we want to hold the ads to the same standards we hold ourselves to.

[00:15:47]>> Like all roads lead back to sports like we just said, but I have another sports question. I think >> it's good. We can go sports all >> very I think it's very important.

[00:15:56]>> We know everyone knows now. Everyone watches women's sports. Isn't that the slogan? Everyone watches women's sports.

[00:16:01]Viewership is growing. The numbers prove it. Advertisers are starting to really catch on now. Is the investment really keeping up with how much the viewership is is increasing? Like, are are advertisers eager to invest in women's sports?

[00:16:15]>> It's funny for us, like I'm very proud of what the Olympics have played in a role of of women's sports.

[00:16:22]>> If you go back three years ago, the Olympics made made up 99% of all the prime time hours of women's sports. And so now you've started to see women's sports not necessarily need the Olympics to lift it. But if you go back to 1996, the Olympics in Atlanta, that was the first Olympics that had women's soccer in it.

[00:16:47]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:16:48]>> Think of the growth that has happened in women's sports and women's soccer specifically since the 96 Olympics. So this Olympics where you're going to have, you know, softball that will be in there, you're going to have flag football, you're going to have sports that you're lacrosse that will grow out of these games, but it's great to be able to have the WNBA, which will be new to our roster this year. But the Olympics always has been, you know, the the cornerstone of part of our storytelling. And I think it's going to be very cool in 2028.

[00:17:23]Th that'll be the first Olympics where more women are competing in the games than men. If you go back to 96, twothirds of the athletes were men. Only a third were women. So you can start to see all of the you the change in the demographics and the interest and thus the sponsorship and the advertising dollars following that.

[00:17:43]>> Right. Is there ever a conversation of this sort of chicken or egg? Are are people starting to care more about women's sports because they're seeing it more or are they seeing it more because they're caring more? Do you know what I mean?

[00:17:55]>> Well, it's Yeah, you're you're exactly right. You kind of have to be able to see it to be it, right? And the idea of a little girl watching the 96 soccer like that inspires the little kids to be able to go out and do it. then they play the the quality of the WNBA is is light years ahead of where it was, you know, even 10 years ago. And so you look at this, the quality is better, the opportunity is better, the money is better, all of that is starting to really grow.

[00:18:25]>> For those companies who aren't yet investing as much as maybe they could be in women's sports, what opportunities are they missing out on? I think women's sports creates I think I always said college sports and I think now with NIL college sports has lost a little bit of that idea of just playing for the puress of the game. I think the Olympics is the one that is you still have the puress of the Olympians. I mean over half the Olympians make less than $50,000 a year.

[00:18:55]you know, the Simone Biles, you know, the Michael Phelps, the majority of these people have two or three jobs just to support what they're trying to do and compete in these. So, I think one of the stories we talk about right now is being able to say in supporting the LA28 Olympic team, you're actually supporting these people that need it to be able to compete. And so, I think you get a benefit out of that. So, that's one of the ones we have the conversation about.

[00:19:22]There's a lot of just content, if you will, that comes out of something like the Olympics. When we think about the difference between programming in a traditional sense and content, >> is there a distinction that matters to you as someone who's in advertising or are we at a point where these two things are kind of merging into one?

[00:19:41]>> You know, it it's a great question because I think as a a industry, we often bifurcate linear and digital. A consumer no longer thinks about it.

[00:19:50]They're looking at their big 75 inch flat screen TV or the phone they're holding in their hand. They're not thinking about is that ad being served on a linear or digital server. They're just watching the content.

[00:20:02]>> And I think when you look at what we've done with the Olympics, you go back to the Olympics in 2012, that was the first Olympics we were showing live and not trying to hold it for later in the night so people would see it.

[00:20:14]>> That was the one I really first sat down and felt really invested in as a kid.

[00:20:19]Yeah. And a lot of people refer to that one as one of them. I think part of it was because you were watching it in real time.

[00:20:25]>> You felt like you were a part of something.

[00:20:26]>> Correct. And so when you look at now the way we produce the Olympics, you can >> if you're into javelin and that's your sport and you're a big fan of the Jamaican Javelin team, you can watch every throw in Javelin if you would like. Every sport is available to stream whatever you want to watch whenever you want to watch it. or you could wait till that night and Mike Trico package it all up for you the best of the day. And some people would rather have that and learn about the stories, the backstories of that. Others want to watch live. Um, but the nice part is we've now curated in a way that fans are allowed to produce their own Olympics. And as great as Molly Solomon, who's our executive producer, is, she's only producing for what she believes the big biggest people want to watch, right?

[00:21:13]>> But there's a lot of people that are really interested in curling come winter games.

[00:21:18]>> I loved watching curling too. So, >> isn't there something just cathartic about it that you just sit back and you're like, "Oh, this is just lovely, right?" And it's calm and it's nice. A lot of yelling with the sweeping, but in general, it's outstanding relaxation time.

[00:21:34]>> It was great. And I think that there's a great argument to be made of like these sports exist because people want to watch them and allowing them to be there in present is not only great for the brand, but the athletes and everybody else who's a part of the production. Was there a big push at the time to say we need to make all of these sports available or was there kind of this attachment to viewership and keeping all of the viewers in the audience in one place? You know what? I I think a credit to, you know, Gary Zankkeell and the people that did the original Olympics deals because it doesn't matter where anyone watches the Olympics. All of it is measured by us. All of it is sold by us.

[00:22:16]>> So, it doesn't really matter. So, we didn't have that legacy pull to say, "We need to make sure x number of hours are here versus here. We make more money here." Now, we look at as a singular buy with an advertiser. And they want to be on social. They want to be on streaming.

[00:22:31]They want to be on prime time. And that's the benefit that we can offer on those properties.

[00:22:36]>> It's interesting that you say that. My next question was going to be about now in in 2026, how spread out audiences are within the NBC brand. So you have obviously linear and live. You have Peacock. You have Telmundo, which you mentioned before, all platforms with huge programming audiences.

[00:22:56]Does that feel like a huge advantage or at times does that feel challenging as if your audience is fractured? It's it's it's a very good question and I think we are at the point where we're starting to break sports fans especially like if you look at you know some sports they're on six streamers five networks it's hard for people to figure out where to watch a game and I think >> we are dangerously close to making the live experience too hard to find >> and if that happens people will then just migrate to watching it on their social feeds, which doesn't benefit anyone. We need that live experience still to be great. And so whereas entertainment, I feel like people understand if you want to watch Law and Order live, you can watch it live.

[00:23:48]>> Feel like you can find it anytime.

[00:23:50]>> Yes, exactly. Or you can watch it any number of places on that. But with sports, I'm I'm a little worried that we've started to fragment it to the point of making viewers frustrated. So, it's a good question and it's something that we're really focused on. How do you curate and how do you make discovery much easier for fans >> ahead of upfront 2026? Is there a is there a certain unifying message or mission beyond NBC 100?

[00:24:18]>> I think NBC1 that's going to be the big one for us. I mean, you only turn a hundred one time. Um, very true.

[00:24:24]>> But we, you know, I think we we have some other celebrations which is, you know, SNL50 was last year.

[00:24:31]>> Uh, Today Show turns 75, 20th anniversary of the Housewives of Orange County, which is, I mean, >> huge.

[00:24:39]>> I know it's you want to talk about fandom, the Bravo fan base.

[00:24:43]>> Who would have thought, you know, when Bravo started in 1980, it was commercial free and it was dedicated to the arts and theater. Wow.

[00:24:53]>> And today there's plenty of theater that happens [laughter] on Bravo. Plenty of theater. But you know, and then you have, you know, who would have thought that you would ever have had a fanfest in Vegas with 30,000 >> Bravo. Bravo. Exactly. Huge.

[00:25:08]>> Sells out in 90 seconds. And these fans who just want to be part of it. I always say to, you know, my friends who are not Bravo fans, I'm like, you just have to go. Even if you don't love Bravo, the fans are so passionate, it is so cool to see of what it is. I said if if you picture if you're a, you know, a Boston Celtics fan, >> this would be like uh inviting not only the current Celtics, but every person that ever played on the Celtics to Vegas, and the fans get to interact with them directly, and people lose their minds, rightfully so. And it's it's unbelievable. So that fan idea of fandom is something whether it's Bravo or sports or entertainment news, we really try to focus on where are those areas of fandom. So while NBC 100's the big unifying fact, these fandoms will be what we'll focus on.

[00:26:03]>> Hey, Bravo Con 2027. Let's make it happen.

[00:26:06]>> I know. And I I'll see you there. You you have a ticket. I will guarantee you have a ticket on that one. It'll be great.

[00:26:12]>> Mark Marshall, thank you so much for joining me today. Congratulations on 100 years. Good luck at Upfronts.

[00:26:19]>> Thank you so much. I appreciate it.