• by Wayne Friedman , November 8, 2013

Further changes are afoot at NBCUniversal’s TV advertising sales unit: layoffs.

NBC is giving notice to about 3.5% of its television advertising sales staff -- just under 30 people, according to TV executives and reports. An NBC spokesperson had no comment.

In September, Steve Burke, CEO of NBC Universal, said the NBC Television Network was behind other big broadcast networks in terms of overall revenue -- about $500 million to $1 billion lower each year than CBS, ABC and Fox Broadcasting.

NBC also trailed those networks in key cost per thousand (CPM) viewer pricing. Overall, Burke says NBC lost around $5 billion in the last seven years because of depressed ratings.

Burke noted there was a gap for NBCUniversal’s USA Network versus other major broad-based cable networks -- a 20% discount in ad unit pricing compared to that of Time Warner’s TNT and TBS.

During this past upfront selling period in June/July -- now under the direction of Linda Yaccarino, president of advertising sales for NBCUniversal -- USA attempted to close the CPM gap by linking overall year-long sales deals for marketers to its highly desirable and expectedly high-rated “Modern Family” repeats, according to media-buying executives.

A few weeks ago, NBCUniversal TV advertising restructured its business around four areas -- all in an effort to give advertisers “scale” that is now tougher to come by: entertainment, live programming, lifestyle and digital video.

Heading up these areas with executive vice president titles include: Dan Lovinger, Seth Winter, Laura Molen, Scott Schiller, Alison Tarrant and John Shea. Trish Frohman is now executive vice president of strategy and operations, assisting Yaccarino.

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