• by Wayne Friedman , over 1 hour ago

As part of its upfront presentation on Monday, NBCU announced it will scale up its "Performance Insights Hub" -- its full-funnel outcome data platform for brands' media schedules -- on all NBC linear TV and streaming platforms in the fourth quarter.

This includes campaign delivery and audience insights.

This will address all advertising categories with data coming from third-party sources including Dynata, EDO, InMarket, IQVIA, iSpot, Kantar Affinity Solutions, Kochava, LiveRamp, VideoAmp.

NBCU says its ongoing "Live Total Impact" effort -- which takes a brand’s message for big live events, especially for its growing sports programs, and “re-exposes those viewers” across its platforms -- will also get a boost. In one example, State Farm witnessed more than a 90% lift from consumers.

In the fourth quarter, NBCU is starting up a "Live Contextual" tool, to align live program content more closely with brand-messaging content.

NBC is also improving its Agentic AI strategy, where specialized agents will automate transactions and "surface" intelligence in near real-time.

In his remarks at NBC’s upfront presentation, Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCU relished the good association the company has in being called a ‘legacy” media company. This year NBC is celebrating its 100th year anniversary at TV company.

In terms of programming for the upcoming season starting in September, NBCU is adding four new series in prime time for the NBC Television Network: family drama "Line of Fire"; "The Rockford Files," a refresh of the old TV series; "Newlyweds," played by real-life couple Téa Leoni and Tim Daly; and "Sunset P.I.," a comedy from the creators of "Brooklyn Nine-Nine."

Unscripted programming efforts include a new "civilian" version of "The Traitors." The celebrity-focused show, which has been on NBC Television Network's Peacock, started up its fourth season earlier this year. The popular word game “Wordle” also starts up this season.

On the weekends, NBC continues to count heavily on sports programming for Sundays. This year it added "Sunday Night Baseball" to its prime-time lineup, joining “Sunday Night Football” and “Sunday Night Basketball.”

Season-to-date, "Sunday Night Baseball" is averaging 2.3 million viewers -- 40% higher at the same point in the season compared to ESPN a year ago.

"Sunday Night Football" earned a Nielsen-measured 20.6 million average viewers this season -- the highest-rated broadcast prime-time show, and third-highest among sport programs overall after CBS’s and Fox's NFL afternoon games.

The highest-rated prime-time shows on the NBC Television Network so far this year (through May 3) are "Chicago Fire" (with 7.2 million viewers), "Chicago Med" (7.1 million) and "Chicago PD" (with 6.4 million).