Given its ratings doldrums and CEO Jeff Zucker’s oft-repeated reminder that 60 percent of NBC Universal’s profit comes from cable, the broadcast arm kicked off its the broadcast network upfront season Monday with a few small announcements and vague hints at what’s coming in digital. With Jay Leno taking over the 10PM to 11PM slot there’s a lot less room for new programming, and this fall, NBC only debut six: there’s four dramas — Trauma, Parenthood, Mercy and Day One; and two comedies: Community and 100 Questions. The scaled down effort — which comes a week before the the larger media buyer/network schmoozefests — makes sense for the network, given the challenges and costs associated with the broadcast business which has been slow to adapt to the wider media landscape.
As for digital, NBCU mostly hinted at what’s to come over the next few months: Vivi Zigler, president of NBCU Digital Entertainment, told advertisers in the morning that there will continue to be “special, exclusive content for all NBCU shows on the web and mobile phone.” But she wasn’t specific as to what that will be. Separately, NBC.com said it was updating its ad serving platform for video ads on its mobile site with help from Kiptronic. More on our sister site MocoNews.net here.
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