CES 2016: Partnerships Key to NBCU Transformation

Forming partnerships is one way to help a large media company like NBCU reinvent itself and survive in disruptive times in the media business.

Speaking at a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show, Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCU, said that while NBCU today is a big company reaching a broad swath of the audience, to reach and be relevant to newer younger audiences, the programmer has formed relationships with, and invested in, digital media companies like Vox and Buzzfeed.

“You have to have your hand in many pots because of the ways consumer are changing,” Yaccarino said.

Since NBCU was acquired by Comcast five years ago, NBCU has spent more on content than Comcast spent to buy NBCU. That investment “convinces our customers we’re in this for the long haul, she said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.