NBCU Readies Its Portfolio Promos for Big Super Bowl and Olympics Audiences

Like every network airing that year’s Super Bowl, NBC will be using its allotted promo time during Sunday’s telecast to expose audiences to its current and upcoming midseason shows, in the hope that many of the 100 million or so watching the game will return to sample those programs. But the broadcaster faces a unique challenge this year: because Super Bowl 56 is occurring in the middle of the Winter Olympics, the network won’t be able to debut any of those entertainment shows until after the Winter Games conclude a week later, on Feb. 20. That includes the coveted post-Super Bowl slot, which usually gives a huge audience boost to a high-profile new show (like CBS’ The Equalizer last year) or one of the network’s biggest hits (like This Is Us, which NBC programmed in 2018). But NBC has opted to air live Winter Olympics coverage on Sunday night after the game, when gold medals are expected to be awarded in ice dance figure skating and the new women’s monobob bobsled event. With 18 days of primetime NBC Olympics coverage, “it’s a bit like having an 18-day Super Bowl from our lens,” said Frances Berwick, chairman, entertainment networks, NBCUniversal television and streaming. Will Smith Remixes Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Theme in Super Bowl Promo for Peacock Reboot As a result, NBCUniversal is focusing on promos that will run not just on Super Bowl Sunday, but across the entire run of the Winter Olympics, and help continue the momentum that should put it in position to win the season in adults 18-49 for the first time since the 2018-19 season. (Pre-Olympics and Super Bowl, NBC’s 1.2 average has it in second place behind Fox, with a 1.4.) “We're going to use the Super Bowl to take advantage for promotion of those because ultimately it is that awareness driver and that opportunity to introduce those shows to this largest possible audience. But then we have the luxury of the Olympics until we get to the shows to be able to continue to discuss and hammer home the conversation and the messaging around each of those shows,” said Jenny Storms, chief marketing officer, NBCUniversal entertainment and sports. And while NBC shows will receive much of the Super Bowl and Olypmics promo attention, the company will be highlighting programs across its entire portfolio. “There’s thousands of hours of content across multiple different platforms, and we’re going to really lean into that,” said Berwick. “On the NBC side, we have an absolutely jam-packed midseason that we’re going to be promoting heavily, both through the Olympics and in the Super Bowl.” Top promo priorities NBC’s biggest promo priorties will include its upcoming revival of the original Law & Order, which will return on Feb. 24 and “will be very much a focal promotional element of this,” said Berwick. The company will also promote new heist drama The Endgame (coming Feb. 21) and The Thing About Pam, its true-crime-inspired limited series starring Renee Zellweger (premiering March 8). There’s also American Song Contest, an eight-week live music competition series debuting March 21. It’s a “big spectacle, which is a perfect pairing with everything about the Olympics and Super Bowl,” said Berwick. Additionally, the network will highlight its comedies, including new sitcoms Grand Crew and American Auto, and the returning Young Rock and Mr. Mayor. There will also be promos for The Courtship, a Pride and Prejudice-style dating series premiering March 6 originally developed for Peacock, and America’s Got Talent: Extreme (returning Feb. 21). “There’s been a lot of moving pieces on our schedule, but we are incredibly excited about this entire lineup,” said Berwick. Between the Super Bowl and Olympics, the company will also tout programs on other NBCU platforms, including Peacock’s Bel-Air (in one Super Bowl spot for the streamer’s gritty Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reboot, executive producer Will Smith remixes the theme song from his original ’90s NBC sitcom), Syfy’s Resident Alien (which just returned for Season 2), USA’s WWE programing, Bravo shows like Below Deck Sailing Yacht and Telemundo (whose Super Bowl promo will tout its upcoming Spanish-language coverage of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022). “We will really be spreading the love,” said Berwick. Berwick said she’s not frustrated by the delay in audience sampling post-Super Bowl. “We feel really confident about the huge platform that this 18 days offers us,” she said. “Having that platform of being able to promote new and returning content in the Super Bowl itself, but also in many different types of Olympic sports, I think is really to our advantage.” Post-Super Bowl potential pitfalls Nor does she wish she could have put something like Law & Order on after the Super Bowl instead of Beijing Games coverage. “That Super Bowl lead-out slot can be absolutely hit and miss. There have been some amazing success stories and then not-so-great stories there,” she noted. (Last year, The Equalizer became the first freshman series since 2010 that debuted after the Super Bowl and turned into a hit for that network). “The idea of being able to have fantastically exciting live sports, leading into live sports, really felt like the best way to go there,” said Berwick. “It just felt like the perfect alignment of the stars, when you can go back into actual live sports, and the time difference really helps us with that.” Plus, having both the Olympics and Super Bowl on the very same day has enabled the company to tout Feb. 13 as both “Super Gold Sunday” and “Once in a Lifetime.” It will be the company’s biggest single-day ad revenue haul ever, as the company expects to take in more than $500 million. (The anticipated ad revenue haul for the full Winter Olympics and Super Bowl is $1.2 billion.) Between the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, “we're going to have people's attention throughout the entire day,” said Jenny Storms, chief marketing officer, NBCUniversal entertainment and sports. “And so that's the way we're really looking at it: what does the whole day look like? How are we taking consumers along the journey? How are we telling really rich stories, and making sure that people are really following us?” (Additional reporting by Mollie Cahillane.)