Steve Burke made the pitch during an on-the-record lunch with reporters ahead of next month’s upfronts and just two days before parent company Comcast is due to defend the merits of its $45.2 billion merger with Time Warner Cable before the Senate.
AP Photo / NBC, Lloyd Bishop
Three years after Comcast assumed control of NBC Universal, its broadcast network has done the unthinkable, going from worst to first in the primetime ratings for the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. And now the company has a simple message for advertisers: pay us.
That was essentially the gist of a presentation NBCU's Chief Executive Steve Burke gave to a room of about 18 reporters over lunch Monday in one of the company's 51st-floor executive dining rooms.
"The story that defines this company is the transition that has occurred at NBC," said Burke. "We are going into the upfronts with positive momentum this year for the first time in a long time." The upfronts are the TV industry's annual ritual where networks preview their new shows for advertisers, collecting upwards of 75% of their ad revenue for the year. Last year, according to Variety estimates, a total of between $8.6 billion and $9.2 billion in advertising inventory was sold by NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, and The CW during the upfronts.
The timing of Burke's presentation, which basically underscored the reach and power of NBC and its stable of cable networks, among them USA, Bravo, E, Syfy, and others, seemed odd considering that Comcast is about to undergo a regulatory colonoscopy for its planned $45.2 billion merger with Time Warner Cable. It would seem that it is probably best not to publicly demand that advertisers pay you more two days before Comcast executives are due before a Senate panel to defend the merits of a deal that will give it control of 30 million cable and broadband subscribers and 19 of the top 20 television markets in the country. But Burke said there was no relation between what was happening at NBC and the regulatory approval process for the Comcast–Time Warner deal.
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