It’s 10:37 am Monday and Kelly Clarkson is belting out a cover of Whitney Houston’s “Queen of the Night” for an auditorium full of (mostly unmasked) executives. Money must be on the table.
The Upfront presentations have indeed returned to Manhattan, three solid years after media outlets last held their marathon dog-and-pony show in-person for the advertising community. NBCUniversal kicked things off with its traditional show at Radio City Music Hall and Clarkson’s carefully chosen tune – both funny and poignant. Sure, linear ratings may be a whisper of what they used to be, and the stock market is in a tailspin. But this company, with its more muted tone, has raked in more than $7 billion in early advertising commitments for 2021, so the old guard may really still have the stuff you want and need.
Over a grueling hour and 45 minutes, NBCUniversal enlisted a percussive barrage of talent to deliver the proverbial bucket of sacrifice. Miley Cyrus, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Blake Shelton, Laverne Cox, Mariska Hargitay, Andy Cohen and Nicole Byer all made appearances – as did, in a particularly surreal moment, Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson and TV icon Edie Falco. (Surprise! She’s set to play his mother in his new Peacock comedy, Bupkis.)
“I’m here so the media can start paying attention to me,” said Kim Kardashian’s tabloid beau, who wore shades indoors and dubbed the streamer “the dick,” to as many giggles as groans. His attempts to woo the crowd were outdone by Falco.
“Finally I get to play an overwhelmed mother of two living in a world of corruption,” said the Sopranos Emmy winner dryly. “Only this time it’s Staten Island.”
NBCUniversal was the first major broadcast network to truly ditch single-channel upfront presentation and traded an NBC-only affair years ago to focus on the corporate parent’s buffet of cable channels — so in many ways it was primed for this one Year 2022 to start affair. Broadcasting’s shadow over the TV economy has all but disappeared under the high noon of streaming. The weekly schedule reflects this. Events for ABC and CBS have been rebranded Disney and Paramount, with their own portfolios and digital counterparts taking greater focus. Peacock may not be anywhere near the level of Disney+, which now has 137.7 million paid subscribers, but that’s where the company is aiming to be.
Peacock has been the butt of most Monday morning jokes and his running line. After an introduction from Tonight Show host Fallon mocking his broadcast channel, which basically only offered himself, Clarkson, Dick Wolf and “everything that happens in Chicago,” he switched to the streamer. “Six of you signed up for Peacock,” he quipped to the audience, before clarifying that there had been 60 million signups (13 million of them paid) tending to a list that The Office, “Miami Vice ‘ and our hottest new iteration includes , Yellowstone. (The popular Paramount drama may air elsewhere, but it’s still streaming older seasons with the rival in a ridiculous deal.)
Fallon stayed on stage just long enough to give Will Smith – see Peacock’s “well-timed” reboot of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – and the short-lived CNN+ a few more jabs before introducing Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal . Oddly enough, it was Shell’s first time on the front stage. He kept it short and made a pointed comment about the portfolio: “Our streaming strategy with AVOD is correct.”
Shell’s succinct comments about Peacock’s ad-friendly status were downright ponderous compared to what came from Deputy Linda Yaccarino. Towards the end of the presentation, the Chair of Global Advertising and Partnerships delivered a spiky monologue that challenged unnamed competitors by stressing that their streaming platform is, was, and likely will remain ad-supported.
“You can trust us,” she said, “because Comcast NBCUniversal isn’t a new Philly startup or a teenage ad tech company or the latest messy merger.”
Poking fun at mergers and acquisitions might seem like low-hanging fruit, but that last line caused an odd uneasiness in Radio City audiences. The few scattered laughs were drowned out by soft “ooohs” and the soft click of pearl clutching.
The one who most amused the crowd, aside from the frenzied reception for Clarkson and a concluding musical number from Cyrus, was Meyers. The late-night host delved a little deeper into the corporate disparagement and the absurdity of the event itself. “What a historic space to tell people you got COVID,” he said of the venue before venturing out dealt with the apparent lack of original programs presented on the program slot. The dramatic Fresh Prince reboot Bel-Air, which the company says has garnered 8 million viewers, is Peacock’s favorite child. And the upcoming airseason gets both a Night Court reboot and a Quantum Leap sequel.
“Every time NBC restarts a show, [Bill] Cosby is somewhere thinking, ‘Maybe,'” Meyers said. “By the way, I made that joke four years ago. You could say it’s lazy – or I restarted it.”
Most of the event was branding blurry. Individual networks were hardly mentioned, apart from a song-and-dance interlude dedicated to the Bravo convention BravoCon. Specific programming was also skipped. The feature film Jurassic World Dominion, streaming on Peacock just four months after its theatrical release on June 10, has as much airtime as any of the new or returning TV series.
If there was a moment of awe for what these events used to be, it came from Susan Rovner. NBCUniversal Television and Streaming Chair of Entertainment Content called their network “the crown jewel of our portfolio” before a montage of the outgoing flagship This Is Us hit the big screen. The series, which was once considered the highest-rated scripted drama on television, will air its final episode on May 24. At another time, such an occasion would have ended the show…rather than a Cyrus cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” Just a few years ago, the cast of a show like This Is Us ran for a lap of honor and were applauded as if their serial drama’s contribution to culture was anything like Nelson Mandela’s. But there was neither a personal appearance nor a moment for reflection – perhaps because, as Meyers pointed out, endings mean very little on television these days.
“In two years I’ll be here announcing the reboot of This is Us,” the comic noted. “They were.”