• by Wayne Friedman , August 30, 2023

NBCUniversal has promoted longtime advertising veteran Mark Marshall to chairman of global advertising/partnerships -- succeeding Linda Yaccarino, who departed in May to become chief executive officer of X, formerly the social media company Twitter.

Marshall has been interim chairman since Yaccarino's departure. He will report to Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group.  

In July, under Marshall’s leadership, amid an uncertain TV advertising marketplace -- including disruptive strikes -- NBCUniversal said it finished its upfront deal-making “roughly in line with" results of last year, according to company representatives.

A year before, NBCU said it took in $7 billion across broadcast, cable and digital platforms in upfront deals.

Media-buying executives say the overall industry-wide TV upfront marketplace deal-making resulted in rare declines in the cost-per-thousand viewer pricing (CPMs) of around 3% to 5%. 

Previously, Marshall was president of advertising sales/partnerships at NBCU since 2018. He had oversight of all advertising for NBC broadcast entertainment ad sales, NBC Sports, advanced advertising sales and client partnerships.

Marshall also held the role of executive vice president of entertainment advertising sales, heading up efforts for NBC Entertainment, USA, Syfy and WWE.   

Before his work at NBCU, Marshall held many senior executive ad positions at Turner Broadcasting between 1999 and 2013, ascending to senior vice president and national sales manager.