• by Wayne Friedman , July 6, 2023

NBCUniversal is restructuring its content into four main units -- headlined with senior NBCU movie executive Donna Langley becoming chairman of NBCUniversal Studio Group and chief content officer, consolidating all TV/movie/streaming content production.

The change comes with the exit of Susan Rovner, who had been the chairman of entertainment content for NBCUniversal Television and Streaming. Langley has been chairman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group since 2019.

This is the first major change under Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast Corp., who took over responsibilities at NBCUniversal in April after the firing of Jeff Shell as chief executive officer.

In a memo to staffers, Comcast's Cavanagh says he will not name a chief executive officer of the NBCUniversal subsidiary.

Mark Lazarus has been promoted as chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, overseeing responsibilities TV networks and streaming platforms (including Peacock), now adding advertising sales under his purview, and content distribution.

Cesar Conde continues as chairman of NBCU News Group, as well as now taking on Telemundo Enterprises (the Spanish-language network's entertainment, news, sports and studios operations) as well as NBCUniversal Local -- 43 NBC/Telemundo local stations.

Mark Woodbury will continue as chairman/CEO of Universal Destinations and Experiences Group, and head of all the business theme parks.

Among other executive shifts, Frances Berwick has been promoted to chairman of NBCUniversal Entertainment, reporting to both Lazarus and Langley. She will add original content across broadcast, cable and Peacock to her current responsibilities.

With regard to Peacock specifically, Matt Strauss will continue as chairman of direct-to-consumer and international for NBCU.

Mark Marshall, will continue as interim chairman of global advertising and partnerships of NBCUniversal, who took over recently with Linda Yaccarino taking the chief executive officer position at Twitter. 

Matt Bond will continue as chairman of content distribution for NBCUniversal.