• by Wayne Friedman , November 8, 2023

Making some key senior-level executives changes, NBCUniversal has named former Roku executive Alison Levin president of advertising and partnerships.

Levin will have responsibility for ad sales efforts for all of NBCUniversal’s platforms -- national, local, small-and-medium size businesses (SMBs), Peacock, sports and Olympic and Paralympic Sales. 

She will report directly to Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships for NBC Universal, who made the announcement.

Levin, who was the first advertising sales hire at Roku, was vice president of global advertising revenue and marketing solutions at the streaming app platform, heading up new product and market strategy for the company’s advertising business, including the company’s  TV streaming division. 

After some weak advertising results due to overall marketplace weakness starting in late 2022, Roku’s third-quarter “Platform" revenue -- of which a large part comes from advertising -- sharply grew 18% to $789 million in the period. The company credits late third-quarter gains, noting a strong overall September.

In addition, NBCU also promoted Karen Kovacs to President of Client Partnerships. Kovacs had been executive vp of advertising/partnerships at NBCU.

In the third quarter of 2023, NBCU advertising revenue sank 8.4% to $1.9 billion. Second quarter ad revenue was down 5% to $2.03 billion.