NBCU stars and executives took the stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York City at the company's Upfront for advertisers. Peacock Parent NBCU Touts New Ad Products, Sports, 100th, ‘Fast and Furious’ Spinoffs at Upfronts Stephanie Prange May 11, 2026 NEW YORK — Peacock parent NBCUniversal touted new advertising products, its live sports programming, the 100th anniversary of the network and “Fast and Furious” spinoff programming on Peacock at its Upfront presentation May 11. “Fast and Furious” franchise star Vin Diesel showed up at the Radio City Music Hall presentation with “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon to talk about new developments in the franchise. “When you first did The Fast and the Furious , did you have any idea how big this franchise would get?” Fallon asked him. “No idea. No idea,” Diesel said. He said that he was at first not even interested in doing a sequel. “To be honest, they had asked if I wanted to do a sequel, and I said no because I wanted The Fast and the Furious to be a classic and I said that if we made a sequel there’d be no chance,” he said. “And today I’m on my way to the Cannes International Film Festival, where they’re celebrating The Fast and the Furious as a classic.” The franchise continues to expand, with a new movie, a roller coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood and, for the first time, a collection of TV series spinoffs. “The finale of Fast and Furious comes out March 17, 2028, and as you all know we are very precious about these movies,” Diesel said. “But for the last decade we’ve realized that the fans have wanted more. They’ve wanted us to expand the legacy characters, their stories and for the last decade the desire has been for us to enter the TV space that Fallon has mastered, and I had to wait until it was right. It became right when [NBCU chief content officer] Donna Langley started to oversee it all because that’s when I knew that the integrity of the characters, the international appeal, what makes us all feel like family, would be protected in the TV space. So … the news that I have here today is that Peacock is launching four shows from the ‘Fast and Furious’ universe.” Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships for NBC Universal, pointed out the collection of sports programming coming to the platforms. “NBC was the first to show the Super Bowl, the World Cup, Major League Baseball, and we completely reinvented how we watch the Olympics, and in our current year all of these sports return to NBC Universal,” he said. “Now we’re building on that rich legacy with a year-round Sunday sports strategy.” In addition to Sunday Night Football, NBC and its platforms will have Sunday Night Basketball and Sunday Night Baseball “providing year-round consistency for the fans and visibility for your brands.” He said, “Sundays are the highest-rated night of the week.” He went on to unveil new advertising products debuting in the fourth quarter. “These big live events create lightening in a bottle for your brands … but the question has always been what does it do for the rest of your investment and that’s why we’ve created Live Total Impact, a first of its kind capability that leverages the initial viewing of your ad in live events and then retargets those consumers across a linear and digital portfolio,” he said. Live Total Impact leverages a brand’s message in big live events and then re-exposes those viewers across the NBCUniversal portfolio in linear and streaming. He said by using the product, State Farm realized a 90% incremental lift in quote starts. He also introduced the Live Contextual Viewing AI-powered solution that allows brands to align their creative message with live content and capture the impact and engagement of these moments in real-time. “Contextual alignment is not a new concept but up until this point it’s been very manual and only available in VOD and that’s why we’re using AI to make this possible in our wide programming,” he said. “Your creative can now align with the moments that matter to your brand.” He also touted the Performance Insights Hub, providing advertisers with a unified view of campaign delivery, audience insights, and full-funnel, in-flight performance across linear and streaming. “With fully transparent cross-platform results, you’ll find linear and streaming, but the truth is, when you look at the premium video market, over 70% of those impressions are still on linear,” he said. “So if your current dashboard is only covering streaming, then you’re missing nearly three-quarters of all ad impressions.” Pearlena Igbokwe, chairman of television studios for NBC Entertainment and Peacock Scripted, also touted the live event programming at the company. “This last Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was the most watched in history with over half of the viewers watching with others,” she noted. Live events help lift the rest of the company’s entertainment slate, she said. “Sport delivers massive and passionate audiences to our platforms and we’re building an entertainment slate that keeps them coming back for more,” she said. “In the fourth quarter 82% of sports viewers watched other programming across NBC, Bravo and Peacock. And during the two weeks of the Winter Olympics audiences spent more than 300 million hours watching entertainment on Peacock, over half of all the viewing on the platform.” She also called out the “winning combination” of NBCU platforms. “Our linear and streaming platforms, NBC, Bravo and Peacock operate strategically as one business with the competitive advantage of reaching over 200 million viewers,” she said. NBC will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the network with a Dec. 10 extravaganza, featuring music, comedy and surprise cast reunions. “We are throwing ourselves a huge birthday party so we can sell ads during that birthday party,” joked NBC veteran Tina Fey. She wasn’t the only “Saturday Night Live” alum to poke fun at the network. “Late Night” host Seth Meyers joked, “Peacock is approaching profitability in the same way Kevin Hart is approaching 7 feet tall.” He also poked fun at himself, in light of the high-profile criticism of late-night hosts by the current presidential administration, resulting in Stephen Colbert leaving his show and Jimmy Kimmel coming under fire from President Trump. “I’m Seth Myers — or, as the FCC calls me, next,” he quipped. Subscribe HERE to the FREE Media Play News Daily Newsletter! Related Posts Peacock Streaming Professional Lacrosse NBCUniversal's subscription streaming service Peacock will be the new streaming home of the Premier Lacrosse League for the upcoming 2021 season, both parties announced March 3. The deal features live and commercial-free streaming coverage of every game this season, including… NBCUniversal Considering Cable Channel Featuring Peacock Sports, NBA Content Cable TV might not be dead yet. NBCUniversal is reportedly considering launching a cable channel that would include Peacock sports content, in addition to the NBA. The channel would launch in the fall to coincide with NBC Sports and Peacock… EverPass Inks Deal for Peacock Exclusive Sports Content Rights NBCUniversal and EverPass Media, a media platform distributing premium live sports and entertainment content to commercial businesses, have announced a multiyear agreement in which EverPass will hold the exclusive rights to distribute Peacock’s exclusive sports content to commercial establishments across… Peacock Adds NBC Sports Channel Peacock has added a new exclusive free channel: NBC Sports on Peacock. Debuting Aug. 24, the channel will stream daytime live sports talk programming, including “PFT Live with Mike Florio,” “The Dan Patrick Show” and “The Rich Eisen Show.” In September, “Brother From Another” and “PFT PM” will join the… Author Stephanie Prange Posted on May 11, 2026 May 18, 2026 Categories Artificial Intelligence , Conference News , Digital , In Production , Marketing , News , Streaming , Studios , Top News Story Tags Advertising , Broadcast , NBC , Peacock , Streaming , Upfronts 2026 -->
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: www.mediaplaynews.com