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    Donna Langley, Universal Chair, Bet Big on ’Oppenheimer’

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    Under Donna Langley’s leadership, Universal has managed the rare feat of achieving creative dominance and commercial supremacy at the same time.“Queen!”It was a Friday night in January, and Snoop Dogg had just rolled into a cocktail party hosted by Donna Langley, NBCUniversal’s chief content officer and studios chairwoman. His shouted greeting, paired with a jaunty deferential dance, seemed to leave her a bit embarrassed. “We’re here to celebrate filmmakers and films,” Langley told the room a few minutes later. “This is not about me.”For an executive who ardently prefers to stay in the background — she declined to be interviewed for this article and dispatched a lieutenant to try and kill it — the 2024 Oscar trail has been an awkward one. Like it or not, this moment in Hollywood history is very much about her.It was Langley who, in a wild bet on a three-hour period drama about a physicist, gave Christopher Nolan the money to make “Oppenheimer.” It won seven Oscars on Sunday, including the ones for director and best picture. Nolan started his acceptance speech for best director by saying, “Donna Langley — thank you for seeing the potential in this.”Nolan’s film helped Universal be No. 1 at the worldwide box office in 2023, ending an eight-year reign by Disney.Antony Jones/Getty ImagesDa’Vine Joy Randolph won the supporting actress Oscar for her performance as a grieving mother and boarding school cook in “The Holdovers,” which was released by Focus Features, a specialty film studio that Langley also oversees.In a rare achievement, Universal’s creative dominance has coincided with commercial supremacy: The studio was No. 1 at the worldwide box office in 2023, selling nearly $5 billion in tickets and ending an eight-year reign by Disney. Moreover, Universal reached audiences the old-fashioned way — by serving up movies from a mix of genres, with nary a superhero to be found. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” ($1.4 billion) led the way, followed by “Oppenheimer” ($958 million), “Fast X” ($705 million), “Five Nights at Freddy’s” ($291 million) and “Migration” ($279 million). More

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      Real Housewife, Leah McSweeney, Files Lawsuit Against Andy Cohen and Bravo

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      A New York City housewife speaks about a new lawsuit against Andy Cohen and Bravo in which she alleges all of these things (and more) created a “rotted workplace culture.”“I thought it was going to be fun,” Leah McSweeney, a former star of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New York City,” said about joining the show’s cast in 2019.She was speaking on a video call on Wednesday, for which her lawyer and her publicist were present. The day before, Ms. McSweeney had filed a lawsuit against parties including the Bravo cable channel; its parent company, NBCUniversal; and Andy Cohen, the executive producer of the “Real Housewives” franchise, alleging the creation of a “rotted workplace culture” that “discriminated against, tormented, demoralized, demeaned, harassed and retaliated against Ms. McSweeney because she is a woman with disabilities, such as alcohol use disorder and various mental health disorders, all in the name of selling drama.”According to the complaint, which was reviewed by The New York Times, Ms. McSweeney, 41, joined the “Housewives of New York City” cast around the time she had relapsed after nine years of sobriety.She became sober just before she started filming the show and has alleged that producers developed “artificially close relationships” with her through which they “cultivated a treasure trove of Ms. McSweeney’s dark secrets with intent to place her in situations known to exacerbate her alcohol use disorder and mental health disabilities because they thought that intentionally making these conditions worse would create good television.”The complaint goes on to allege that producers frequently undermined Ms. McSweeney’s sobriety not only by encouraging her outright to drink but by “engaging in guerrilla-type psychological warfare intended to pressurize Ms. McSweeney into a psychological break and cause Ms. McSweeney to relapse.”It also claims that Mr. Cohen frequently uses cocaine with other “Housewives” stars and that he rewards those cast members with “favorable treatment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tarnished Golden Globes Return to TV, and Hollywood Plays Along

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      The companies behind the tarnished Golden Globe Awards pushed forward with a rehabilitation effort on Tuesday, with Hollywood luminaries making their way through a waterlogged Los Angeles to accept trophies for film and television achievements.The stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael hosted the 80th Globes ceremony, foregoing the typical monologue (zingers about high-wattage attendees) for a subdued opening directly addressing the lack of diversity that kept the show off the air last year. In several moments, a quiet awkwardness fell over the room, as when he noted that the group that awards the Globes didn’t “have a single Black member until George Floyd died.”“One minute, you’re making mint tea at home, the next you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled white organization,” he continued, explaining how he came to take the gig. “Life really comes at you fast, you know?” He cracked that a friend, upon learning that he would get paid $500,000, told him to “put on a good suit and take them white people’s money.”“The Fabelmans,” a semi-autobiographical family drama from Steven Spielberg, won the Globe for best film, drama, and the award for best director.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Spielberg said while accepting the directing prize. “I’ve been hiding from this story since I was 17 years old.” He joked that his mother, Leah Adler, was in heaven “kvelling about this.”“The Banshees of Inisherin,” a windswept tragicomedy about a moldered friendship, was named best film, musical or comedy, also picking up Globes for Martin McDonagh’s screenwriting and Colin Farrell’s acting.But behind the sharp jokes, fervent acceptance speeches, Champagne and couture lurked another sad truth: After two years of upheaval caused by an ethics, finance and diversity scandal — culminating with NBC’s refusal to broadcast the 2022 ceremony — Hollywood has dropped any pretense that the Globes are meaningful as markers of artistic excellence.The Globes are about business, plain and simple.Most movie studios view the Globes telecast and accompanying red carpet spectacle as crucial marketing opportunities for winter films, especially dramas, which have been struggling at the box office. In a study released in 2021, economists at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania found that, on average, films that win Globes earn an additional $16.5 million in ticket sales.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Steven Spielberg said while accepting the award for best director.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty Images“The Fabelmans,” which cost $40 million to make, not including marketing, was one of the films with the most to gain. It has collected $13.4 million at the domestic box office since its release in November.James Cameron, a best director nominee for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” had received the memo. He turned a red carpet moment into a sales pitch. “We’re back to theaters — as a society we really need this,” he said. “Enough with the streaming already!”The lead acting Globes for dramas went to Austin Butler (“Elvis”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tár”). Ke Huy Quan was honored for his supporting performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while Angela Bassett won the Globe for best supporting actress for her regal role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”In a surprise, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoff “House of the Dragon” won the Globe for best television drama. (Awards prognosticators had predicted that “Severance” on Apple TV+ would get the prize.) “Abbott Elementary,” the ABC comedy set in a Philadelphia school, was named best comedy.“Thank you for believing in this show,” Quinta Brunson, the “Abbott Elementary” star and producer, said earlier as she collected the trophy for best actress in a comedy. “It has resonated with the world in a way that I couldn’t even imagine it would have.”“The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Abbott Elementary” had the most nominations going into the night among movies and TV shows. “Banshees” was up for eight film prizes, while “Abbott Elementary” figured into five TV categories.Martin McDonagh, holding the trophy, and Graham Broadbent, a producer, are among the group accepting best film, musical or comedy, for “The Banshees of Inisherin.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesFarrell won the Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical for his baffled “Banshees” performance, taking time to thank studio executives, his co-stars, his family and the donkey that appeared in the film. Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a comedy or musical for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a zany twist on superhero movies.“I think all of you women understand this — as the days, the years and the numbers get bigger, it seems like opportunities start to get smaller,” Yeoh said, noting that she turned 60 last year and referencing the discrimination she has faced in Hollywood. She then started to say how grateful she was for the role when show producers started playing music to nudge her offstage. “Shut up, please,” she said, to cheers, before continuing.Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesPeople who assist stars behind the scenes (agents, publicists, stylists) will tell you that very few were eager to attend the ceremony, either as nominees or presenters. At least 20 nominees did not attend, including Julia Roberts, Blanchett and Zendaya, who was named best actress in a television drama for “Euphoria.” Some of the no-shows cited work conflicts, but the weather didn’t help, with the event coming on the heels of what meteorologists said was the worst rainstorm to sweep through Los Angeles since 2005.Still, most nominees went through the motions — smiles! smiles! smiles! — because they care greatly about Oscar nominations, and voting by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences begins on Thursday.The Golden Globe Awards broadcast also generates tens of millions of dollars for various Hollywood businesses. Catering companies, party planners, chauffeurs, banquet workers, florists and spray tanners count on the show to generate a significant part of their winter income. “This is so exciting,” Marc Malkin, a senior Variety editor, said at the start of Variety’s red carpet preshow, sounding like he was still trying to convince himself. (Globes producers actually put down a gray carpet for stars to walk, explaining that it was part of a “new palette.” Some of the biggest stars walked the carpet but did not give interviews, perhaps to avoid awkward questions about why they decided to come.)Advertisers bought roughly $50.3 million worth of airtime during NBC’s most recent Globes telecast, according to Kantar, a media research firm. NBC paid about $40 million for rights to this year’s show, money that went to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the unorthodox nonprofit organization that bestows the Globes, and Dick Clark Productions, which mounted the telecast.As host, Carmichael veered from serious to lighthearted to boorish (vulgar language, a Whitney Houston joke) during a ceremony that was notable for the diversity of winners and those in contention. The show even made time for a taped message about freedom by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.Eddie Murphy and the television producer Ryan Murphy (“Pose,” “Glee,” “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) received lifetime achievement awards. Growing up gay in Indiana, Ryan Murphy said, “I never saw a person like me getting an award or even being a character on a TV show.”Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesNBC canceled the 2022 telecast amid an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the foreign press association. Citing extensive reforms by the group, NBC in September agreed to return the ceremony to its air — under a one-year trial. The press association has overhauled membership eligibility, recruited new members with an emphasis on diversity, enacted a stricter code of conduct and has moved to end its tax-exempt status and transform into a for-profit company with a philanthropic arm. The 96-member organization now has six Black members — up from zero — and has added 103 nonmember voters, a dozen or so of whom are Black.NBC billed the 2023 Globes as “the party of the year” in advertisements. In truth, however, Hollywood tried to pare back the glamour and excess, in part to send a signal — the Globes are still on probation — and in part because studios have been cutting costs and laying off staff to cope with setbacks at their streaming businesses. In the past, the Beverly Hilton has hosted as many as six separate after parties; this time around, there was one scheduled.Even so, the movie capital does not do austerity terribly well. Moët & Chandon was expected to supply more than 100 cases of Champagne, including its Rosé Impérial. Globes attendees were served Icelandic salmon with “citrus-scented celery purée, Maya Pura honey brulée, roasted watermelon radish” and “herb dust.” More

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      A New ‘Best Man’ Gives Equal Time to the Women

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      “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” a new series sequel to the popular films, deepens the franchise’s female characters, introduces new faces and tackles a wider range of issues.The broom-jumping romantic comedy “The Best Man” debuted in theaters in 1999, delivering a bougie Black bonanza that would prove to have true staying power.For his film directing debut, Malcolm D. Lee assembled for “The Best Man” a cast of young Black actors, anchored by Morris Chestnut, Taye Diggs and Nia Long, to play successful late-20s college buddies navigating the messier aspects of love and friendship as one couple prepares to wed.There was no encroaching systemic racism for them to overcome and there were no societal ills looming large (unless you count the male characters’ misogynistic views). It was just two hours of beautiful people representing every shade of brown, sporting their best Y2K wear, thriving professionally and being decadently self-involved to the beat of a neo-soul soundtrack.“It was such an important film during that time for the culture,” Long said. “We, as Black people, were seeing ourselves in a different way for the first time, and were thirsty for that.”Lee, who also wrote the film, said he wanted Black filmgoers to “feel seen, and to normalize what I know as being Black in America.”The film grossed an estimated $34.5 million (on a budget of $9 million), helped start the careers of Regina Hall and Sanaa Lathan, and became a Black rom-com classic, joining the ranks of Diggs’s 1998 star-making vehicle “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and the Long-led 1997 drama “Love Jones.” The 2013 follow-up, “The Best Man Holiday,” doubled its predecessor’s box office numbers with a Christmas-themed tear-jerker that reunited the age-defying actors.Released in 1999, “The Best Man” starred emerging young actors like, from left, Monica Calhoun, Morris Chestnut and Diggs.Michael Ginsberg/Universal PicturesNow, more than two decades since they danced the Electric Slide to Cameo’s “Candy” during the first film’s climactic reception scene, the ensemble is back together for another installment. “The Best Man: The Final Chapters,” a limited series premiering on Peacock on Dec. 22, picks up where the sequel left off, in the aftermath of one character’s tragic loss and amid the shock of yet another wedding announcement. (And still, the actors seemingly have not aged a lick.)“It’s kind of amazing that we’re all alive and healthy, and that we’re all thriving in this business,” Lathan said. “When we came up, there were literally a handful of us working and fighting for the same jobs.”With eight hourlong episodes to work with (all dropping at once), Lee and the other writers expanded the story to give equal time to the women, introduce some new faces and tackle a more robust range of issues.The two films offered a glimpse of the interior lives of four Black men who’ve been through it all together. There’s the ambitious novelist Harper (played by Diggs); his N.F.L.-star best friend, Lance (Morris Chestnut); Quentin (Terrence Howard), the resident Lothario and pot-stirrer; and Julian, or “Murch” (Harold Perrineau), the peaceable doormat. They grew older together on the big screen, but the series finds them finally growing up.As “The Final Chapters” opens, Harper has achieved many of his career goals but is still as unmoored as ever. Lance remains a grief-stricken widower who is now floundering as a single parent. (His wife Mia, played by Monica Calhoun, died in the film sequel.) Quentin is still a showboating provocateur, but he is slowly learning how to show his vulnerable side. By contrast, Murch, the people-pleasing family man, has picked up a little of the edge that his cocky friend sloughed off.“We’ve come a long way,” Diggs said. “We’ve all, as actors, lived our lives and had intense situations that lend themselves to our acting work, and you can see it in this series. It all comes through.”The series finds the core friend group, played by, from left, Terrence Howard, Diggs, Perrineau and Chestnut, older and wiser but still negotiating life and love.PeacockLee said he had been brewing up next-phase ideas for the gang ever since “Holiday” proved to be a hit, and he even wrote a draft of a script. But a third movie never happened, Lee said, because of the actors’ conflicting schedules and his stalled budget negotiations with Universal Pictures, which distributed the first two films.After Lee signed a development deal in 2018 with the production studio Universal Television — the studio is, like Peacock, part of NBCUniversal — he began to rework the sequel concept as a limited series.Lee, who also directed, among other films, the hit 2017 comedy “Girls Trip” and the 2021 “Space Jam” sequel, “A New Legacy,” sought out a seasoned TV pro to help him make the transition to the small screen. Enter Dayna Lynne North, who was fresh off a stint as a writer and executive producer for HBO’s “Insecure.” She had been a “Best Man” fan since attending the 1999 premiere screening of the first movie with her USC film school squad. Signing on to write and share showrunning duties on the series with Lee was a full-circle moment for her.“It’s basically like watching LeBron play and having him come over and be like, ‘Hey, you want to come down here and see if you can make this shot?’” North said, referring to the Lakers star LeBron James. “It felt like home to me — I get where these characters are, and I know the world of television.”“I came in knowing that I wanted to dive deeper into the women’s lives,” she continued. “We hadn’t gotten the same window into the women of ‘The Best Man.’”“I think we’ve done a great job of showing growth,” said Long, right, with Lathan in the new series.Matt Infante/PeacockIndeed, male egos rampaged through the films, in the form of grandstanding, trash-talking, territory-claiming and brawling, while the women’s roles mostly took a back seat. The series brings the ladies to the fore.“I think we’ve done a great job of showing growth, maturing and being true to how life works, because it is complicated,” Long said.Her character, Jordan, once primarily an embodiment of the “one that got away” type, ascends ever higher in her TV executive career while grasping for work-life balance. Hall’s Candace, who arrived to the franchise as a bachelor-party stripper and won Murch’s affections with her love of literature, adds graduate school to her already packed schedule as a mother and school administrator. And Lathan’s Robyn, Harper’s grounded, patient wife, gradually begins to emerge from his long shadow.“It has been really synergistic in a weird way,” Lathan said of returning to the role. “The evolution of her growing her self-worth has been parallel to what’s been happening to me. She’s stepping into her power, and how that manifests is not necessarily expected.”And then, there’s Shelby, the clear front-runner in the “Most Improved” category. Played by Melissa De Sousa, the character began as a snarky shrew who dominated the submissive Murch until she lost him to Candy near the end of the first film. She returned in the sequel as a scorned reality-TV drama queen, hellbent on stoking fires. The new Shelby is still brash, but she has more to offer than audacious one-liners.“I had to fight for more because I was the least developed out of all of them,” De Sousa said. “People liked her, but they liked to hate her.”She said she had asked Lee to flesh out the role for the series. “I said, ‘It’s really important that you show Shelby as a fully developed woman,’” she recalled telling him. “‘You have to show her heart.’” (Lee said he had already intended to do so.)Malcolm D. Lee, center, had been thinking about another “Best Man” sequel since the second film came out in 2013.Clifton Prescod/PeacockBeyond presenting the women with more depth, the series also travels outside the friendship bubble, giving its characters more to chew on than just who-slept-with-or-kept-secrets-from-whom melodrama.The story bounces between the 2010s and the present (with episode titles cleverly referencing Black literature, including Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones). The plot is studded with Covid-related business busts, a racial microaggression that snowballs into a run-in with the New York Police Department, gentrification woes, a #MeToo moment and a Black Lives Matter protest.“It made it easier,” Diggs said of the more topical scenes. “It wasn’t like we had to go and do research to find out how we thought this character would feel, because it’s all very fresh.”As the characters left their comfort zones, so too did Lee, who opted to share directing duties for a change. He directed four episodes, and Stacey Muhammad (“Queen Sugar”) and Charles Stone III (“black-ish”) took one each. The revered film and TV polymath Robert Townsend (“Hollywood Shuffle”) directed the two remaining episodes, bringing out the cast’s and crew’s inner fans. (“I’ve been in this business for a minute, so it’s great to be able to still feel star-struck,” Diggs said.)While it all amounts to plenty of change for a beloved franchise, both onscreen and behind the scenes, Lee’s original vision remains intact. The goal has always been to depict the kind of people Lee knows in his own life — “upwardly-mobile, aspirational people who wanted to ‘make it.’” he said.“But when you make it, guess what? Life is still there,” he continued. “When we get older, reality sneaks in — not just the big events like weddings and funerals but also those in-between things with career, family, your parents and kids.“We wanted to deal with all of those things, but also have the eye candy and the nostalgia.” More

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      ‘Days of Our Lives,’ NBC Mainstay Since 1965, Moves to Peacock

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      The soap opera will be shown exclusively on the network’s streaming service, ending its 57-year run on broadcast TV.After more than 57 years and 14,000 episodes, NBC is moving “Days of Our Lives,” one of the last remaining soap operas, from its afternoon TV perch onto Peacock, the network’s streaming service.It will be replaced in the time slot by a news program, adding to the demise of the soap opera genre that, for most of television’s existence, was a steady presence on the major American networks each afternoon. “Days of Our Lives” will make its Peacock debut on Sept. 12, when the hourlong “NBC News Daily” will also premiere in its place on network TV.“With a large percentage of the ‘Days of Our Lives’ audience already watching digitally, this move enables us to build the show’s loyal fanbase on streaming while simultaneously bolstering the network daytime offering with an urgent, live programming opportunity for partners and consumers,” Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, said in a statement.The move left just three soap operas remaining on network TV: ABC’s “General Hospital,” and CBS’s “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”Soap operas — named for the soap companies that advertised on them in the early days — began as radio programs in the 1930s, and moved to television in the ’50s in a 15-minute format. “Days of Our Lives” debuted on Nov. 8, 1965, as a half-hour program and expanded to an hour in 1975.The formula has in some ways changed little since the beginning: Plots feature heavy doses of love, lust, infidelity, heartbreak, murder and all manners of other intrigue, including occasional resurrections from the dead and brushes with the supernatural.For more than a decade, cancellation rumors have dogged “Days of Our Lives,” which follows a collection of characters in the fictional Midwestern town of Salem. In 2007, Jeff Zucker, then the president of NBC Universal Television, said the show was unlikely to continue past 2009. Soap opera ratings were sinking across the board; in 2009, CBS canceled “Guiding Light” after 72 years, and also canceled “As the World Turns” after 54 years.In 2011, ABC canceled “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.”But “Days of Our Lives” powered on, even as it attracted fewer than two million viewers per episode in recent years, far below the nearly 10 million who watched in the 1970s when it took over as daytime’s top-rated serial. It had the lowest ratings of the four remaining soap operas in the 2021-2022 season.In 2021, NBC renewed the program for two years, taking it into 2023. More

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      Madison Avenue’s Biggest Event Returns, to a Whole New World

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      In the three years since the television industry’s biggest companies pitched their shows to advertisers in person at the so-called upfronts, the entertainment industry has been flipped on its head.For the first time in three years, the circus is coming back to town.The television industry’s biggest showcase for advertisers, the so-called upfronts, will return to Manhattan landmarks like Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall after the pandemic put the glitzy, in-person galas on hold. Just like in the old days, media executives will make their best pitch to persuade marketers to buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial time in the coming months.But thanks to the vastly changed media industry, many aspects will be radically different. The companies themselves have changed: CBS merged with Viacom and then renamed itself Paramount Global, and WarnerMedia and Discovery completed a megamerger, forming Warner Bros. Discovery. The tech giant YouTube is making its debut on the presentation lineup this week, and there is already intrigue that Netflix could join the fray next year.And instead of unveiling prime-time lineups that will roll out in the fall, media companies are expected to spend a large portion of their time talking up advertising opportunities on streaming services like HBO Max, Peacock, Tubi and Disney+. There’s good reason for that: Advertisers are now allocating closer to 50 percent of their video budgets to streaming, up from around 10 percent before the pandemic, several ad buyers said in interviews. The free ad-supported streaming platforms Tubi and Pluto were highlights for their owners, Fox and Paramount, in the most recent quarter.“The upfronts used to be ‘Here’s 8, 9, 10 p.m. on Monday night’ — I don’t think anybody cares about that anymore,” said Jon Steinlauf, the chief U.S. advertising sales officer for Warner Bros. Discovery. “You’re going to hear more about sports and things like Pluto and less about the new Tuesday night procedural drama.”Stephen Colbert during the 2019 CBS upfront. CBS merged with Viacom and then renamed itself Paramount Global since the last time it was featured on an upfront stage.John P. Filo/CBSThe courtship is no longer one-sided, when reluctant streaming platforms once put a stiff arm to commercials. As subscriber growth starts to slow for many streaming services, advertising — a mainstay of traditional media — is gaining appeal as an alternative source of revenue.Netflix, which resisted ads for years but is aiming to debut an ad-supported tier later this year after a subscriber slump, is expected to play a larger role in future upfronts. Disney+, which has so far continued to increase its subscriber count, said this year that it would also offer a cheaper option buttressed by ads.“Streaming is part of every single conversation that we have — there isn’t an exception based on who your target it is, because whether you’re targeting 18-year-olds or 80-year-olds, they’re all accessing connected TV at this point,” said Dave Sederbaum, the head of video investment at the ad agency Dentsu. Last year, ad buyers spent $5.8 billion on national streaming platforms, an amount dwarfed by the $40 billion allocated to national television, according to the media intelligence firm Magna. But television sales peaked in 2016 and are expected to decline 5 percent this year, compared with a 34 percent surge projected for streaming ad revenue as services offer more preproduced and live content.The rapid changes in viewing habits have caused many marketing executives to shift toward ads placed through automated auctions and “away from legacy models like upfronts” where “advertiser choice is limited,” said Jeff Green, the chief executive of the ad-tech company The Trade Desk.“As advertisers are seeing reach and impact erode from traditional cable television, they are focused on moving to premium streaming content,” he said during his company’s earnings call last week. “Increasingly, this is the most important buy on the media plan.”But streaming will not be the only topic at the upfronts — the events themselves will also be center stage.After two years of upfront pitches recorded from executives’ living rooms, buyers will fly into New York from around the country. They will shuttle among grand venues to watch presentations while seated alongside their competitors. Some venues are asking for proof of vaccination, while masks are a must at some; Disney is requiring a same-day negative Covid test.To many networks, hosting an in-person upfront was nonnegotiable this year.“This show cannot be too big,” Linda Yaccarino, the chairwoman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, said she told producers of the company’s presentation at Radio City Music Hall on Monday. “Having everyone in the room together, there is no surrogate for that.”“Every single brand and marketer and advertiser comes in for the upfront week,” said Rita Ferro, the president of Disney advertising sales and partnerships. “It’s going to look and feel very different because it is very different — there’s so much more that we’re bringing to the stage.”Many of the week’s showcases will eschew a detailed rundown of nightly prime-time schedules and instead offer a more holistic view of available content platforms.Mr. Steinlauf, the Warner Bros. Discovery advertising chief, who is a veteran of several decades of upfronts, described changes that represent “the biggest shift of my career.” He said streaming was “the future, the new frontier,” and heavily watched athletic events were “the new prime time.” Warner Bros. Discovery will make its upfronts debut on Wednesday in front of 3,500 people at Madison Square Garden.Jo Ann Ross, Paramount’s chief advertising revenue officer, said that its event on Wednesday would “show a broader look.” She described it as a “coming-out party as Paramount” for the company formerly known as ViacomCBS.“It will feel different than what it was in the past,” she said.On Tuesday, Disney will abandon its usual upfront home at Lincoln Center and move to a space in the Lower East Side at Pier 36. The presentation will feature its three streaming platforms — Hulu, ESPN+ and Disney+ — sharing a stage for the first time. NBC Universal will highlight its technological capabilities, such as data collection, while also drumming up its Peacock streaming platform, even though the service already made a pitch earlier this month during NewFronts, an event for digital companies courting Madison Avenue.Linda Yaccarino of NBCUniversal said that “having everyone in the room together” this year for the company’s upfront was the only way to go.Tawni Bannister for The New York TimesThe competition could mean more demands from advertisers, like the ability to back out of commitments and lower thresholds for how much buyers must spend.“It’s basic economics — there are now more options available to media buyers and so you’re going to see a lot more willingness to be flexible,” said David Marine, the chief marketing officer of the real estate company Coldwell Banker.Potential headaches for advertisers this year could include Russia’s war in Ukraine, global supply issues and steep inflation, according to Magna. But low unemployment and other signs of strength from the U.S. economy, along with the coming midterm elections, are expected to feed a surge in ad spending.How the upfronts address those concerns, along with deeper movements in the industry, “will be telling,” said Katie Klein, the chief investment officer at the agency PHD.“There’s always going to be room for the upfront, there’s always going to be a need for it,” she said. “But it’s going to evolve as our industry is evolving.” More

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      As a Daytime Host, Kelly Clarkson Has No Fear of Being Vocal

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      Kelly Clarkson had just come striding through an aisle of the Appel Room one afternoon in late August, accompanied by Kristin Chenoweth and a troupe of dancers as they sang the final bars of the uplifting Imagine Dragons ballad “On Top of the World.”In the minutes between catching their breath and performing the number for a second time — part of an elaborate musical sequence that will open the third season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” — the host called out from her stage here at Jazz at Lincoln Center and offered a tongue-in-cheek apology to Chenoweth and the ensemble if she had missed any steps in this earlier take of the routine.“I was freaking out,” Clarkson said. “You do not want your entrance to depend on me.”Though she has already been many things in her career — the winner of the inaugural season of “American Idol”; a best-selling, Grammy Award-winning pop and country musician; a coach and adviser on “The Voice” — Clarkson will gladly admit she is still a novice when it comes to starring in her own syndicated daytime talk show.Throughout a day spent taping segments for her show’s premiere week, which begins on Monday, the spirited, self-deprecating Clarkson had been telling her studio audience she felt rusty after coming back from a scheduled filming break of about three months. But there was not much time for her to get back up to speed and, as she has gotten used to, she would have to figure things out on her feet.Seth Meyers was among the guests during a string of New York episodes taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Weiss Eubanks/NBCAt a moment like this, much is expected of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” a blend of celebrity interviews, games and slice-of-life segments informed by the 39-year-old host’s pop-cultural sensibilities. The program is coming off its first Daytime Emmy win for best entertainment talk show, a category in which Clarkson has vied with established competitors like Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest (the longtime “Idol” host) and newcomers to the field like Drew Barrymore.NBCUniversal, which produces “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” has renewed the series through the 2022-2023 season and has said it will give Clarkson’s program the slot now held by “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” when its veteran host steps down next spring after 19 years.These decisions provide added incentive for Clarkson while significantly raising the stakes: At a time when her show is still finding its footing — and has yet to have anything resembling a normal season — she is already being groomed as DeGeneres’s heir.This coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was supposed to be the one where she and her colleagues would show off the full potential of the program, unencumbered by growing pains or pandemic restrictions; by opening it in New York, they hoped to spotlight a city, a host and a TV series that were fully restored and back to business as usual.The recent resurgence of the coronavirus has put a cloud over much of that. But as Clarkson prepared to forge ahead in New York — before returning to the show’s home in Los Angeles for another week’s worth of season-premiere programming — she said she had gotten accustomed to the uncertainty that has so far epitomized her talk-show experience.“It’s kind of been like that from the get-go,” Clarkson said. “From Season 1, we’ve had to reinvent it. We’ve never had, really, a moment with our show where it’s like everything’s going to plan.”A few days before shooting her season premiere, Clarkson was speaking in a video interview from Los Angeles, comfortably dressed down with her hair held back in a ponytail while her dog Henry played at her feet. “I appreciate that I can do this in sweats and no bra,” she said with delight.That relentless candor has a lot to do with how Clarkson got this gig — it’s a quality that her fans and advocates find relatable. But it also gave her the freedom to nearly turn down the show. Thinking back to the period a few years ago when she was being sought as a host, she said: “Everybody was like, Oh man, you would be great at doing a talk show — except for me, I wasn’t one of those everybodies. I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that.”She added, “I’m very honest with myself.”Alex Duda, the showrunner and an executive producer of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” said that she was among those early recruiters who were impressed by Clarkson’s energetic, unpredictable appearances on “The Voice.”Duda, who previously produced daytime talk shows for Steve Harvey and Tyra Banks, said that Clarkson was also distinguished by her formative “American Idol” victory in 2002, a process in which millions of viewers witnessed and participated in her ascent to fame.Clarkson was initially unconvinced that she should host a talk show. “I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“We chose her,” Duda said. “She connects with us in a way that nobody does because we helped with that. People are rooting for her in a different way.”Clarkson, who was 20 when she won, said she had also come to realize how “Idol” had unexpectedly prepared her for a future in daytime television.“We were on TV all the time,” she said wearily. “Doing random things — being interviewed, interviewing other people, doing skits.” To this day, she said, she never worries about having something to say when a camera is pointed at her: “I don’t really feel pressure from that. That can be scary for other people sometimes, like, Oh God, what’s she going to say?”With a blueprint that allowed her to perform a new cover song in every episode (or Kellyoke, in the show’s parlance), and a guest list that enabled her to share a stage with musical heroes like Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks, Clarkson embarked on the first season of her program in September 2019.In March 2020, in-studio production of the show was halted by the pandemic. But Clarkson, who had left Los Angeles with her two young children to hunker down in a cabin in Montana, continued to produce new segments for the program that she recorded on an iPhone.Clarkson said she had found the experience as invigorating as it was frustrating. “We were in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “The dryer broke. We’re going to the bathroom in the woods at some point. I’m 5’3” and a half, dude. I’m in snow up to my thighs. And I’m like, well, I have a camera.”She added: “I’m trying to be America’s cheerleader. And I never completely broke down about it, but I definitely laughed hysterically at several moments.”In its second season, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was able to return to its Los Angeles studio with pandemic protocols in place: Panel discussions were socially distanced, and audience members could participate only virtually, appearing as heads and torsos on flat screens. (A limited studio audience will be allowed to return in Season 3.)These circumstances were not ideal for a fledgling program still trying to find its footing. “You’re trying to build on momentum,” Duda said. “For us, it was difficult being a show about connection when you can’t connect physically. We haven’t been able to realize our mission.”Jason Halbert, who is the show’s musical director and has worked with Clarkson for almost 20 years, said that he has seen her thrive in fluctuating settings, as a musician and as a host.When he is touring with Clarkson, Halbert said, “There’s a new text every morning of a great new idea she has.”“I wake up in Vegas and she’s like: ‘You know what? I want a harp player for my show today. I want a kids’ choir.’ I love those challenges.”When Chris Martin appeared on the show, Clarkson brought out her son, Remington, and daughter, River Rose, so that they could hear Martin perform.Weiss Eubanks/NBCHalbert said he had experienced a similar volatility on the talk show. “Scripts are being written, reviewed, at 11:00, 11:30, midnight the night before,” he said. “There’s rewrites, there’s a new surprise or a new guest. My morning starts with about three or four requests, every single day, of some new music that has to be created. There’s nothing routine about it at all.”But over their years together, Halbert said he had seen Clarkson go from a plucky neophyte to a star, a mother and a leader. “Her voice has grown, her stage presence — everything about her has grown,” he said.By the end of last spring, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was drawing an average daily audience of about 1.3 million viewers, frequently putting it ahead of “Ellen” and other competitors like “The Rachael Ray Show,” though it doesn’t surpass category leaders like “Dr. Phil” or “Live With Kelly and Ryan.”Despite the obvious indicators that Clarkson is being positioned to step in as successor to DeGeneres (whose show is produced by Warner Bros.), no one is quite ready to talk about this explicitly while DeGeneres is still on the air.Tracie Wilson, the executive vice president of NBCUniversal’s syndication studios, praised DeGeneres for her lengthy, innovative tenure. “Nineteen years — what a milestone, that’s incredible,” Wilson said.Even so, Wilson said that the coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was an important opportunity to reintroduce the show to viewers.“We are treating Season 3 like a launch,” she said. “We’re putting everything behind it. Because we’re still an infant of a show and we have so much more to do. We’ve had so many stops and starts with the pandemic.”Clarkson — who has featured DeGeneres as a guest on her show and appeared several times on “Ellen” — played down comparisons between them. “No one can take over for Ellen. It’s an iconic show,” she said.She argued that her efforts as a talk-show host shouldn’t be measured against those of her illustrious predecessors, any more than she should be gauged as a singer in comparison to the vocalists who inspired her.“I’m never going to be Whitney Houston — I’m never going to be Cyndi Lauper, Reba or Trisha or Mariah,” she said. “I’m going to be me. I think that’s fine. There’s room for everyone at the table.”Clarkson credits her time on “American Idol” with making her comfortable on-camera. “I don’t really feel pressure from that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesClarkson — who is simultaneously preparing a new Christmas album for release later this year — said there was still value in trying to produce positive, uplifting entertainment. It is a goal that hasn’t been deterred by the many months of coverage that her continuing divorce from her onetime manager Brandon Blackstock has yielded for celebrity sites like TMZ and Us Weekly.Clarkson said she was generally unaware of how she is portrayed in the tabloids, given that her own internet usage is limited mostly to Friday night sessions of “Zillow porn” and that these sites were off her radar, even if they had generated large readerships.“It’s supply and demand,” she said. “People demand it, so they supply it, unfortunately. I’m not mad at it. But I don’t have to subscribe to it.”Clarkson spent much of an afternoon taping in New York trading enthusiastic repartee with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay and a personal fave she was meeting for the first time. She swooned over his accent and contributed vocals as he played her an acoustic-guitar cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).”During a question-and-answer segment, Martin sheepishly said he was nervous. “I’ve never been interviewed by someone who’s a better singer than me,” he explained.Clarkson threw up her hands and pretended to walk off the stage. “I’ve achieved greatness,” she said triumphantly.Later, Clarkson brought out her 7-year-old daughter, River Rose, and 5-year-old son, Remington, so that they could hear Martin play a solo performance of the Coldplay song “Green Eyes.”Martin had gotten only a few bars in when Remy motioned to his mother and said, loud enough for the audience to hear: “I need to go to the bathroom.”It was one of those unscripted moments that Clarkson lives for, and she seized it. As her son trotted off the stage, the delighted host told the crowd that she never seems to have this problem herself.“I always go right before my show starts,” she said. “Because I’m panicked about it.” More

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      in Movies

      Universal Pictures Spends Big for New 'Exorcist' Trilogy

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      The deal, expected to be announced this week, is for more than $400 million and is a direct response to the streaming giants that are upending the film industry’s economics.LOS ANGELES — Heads are spinning in Hollywood: Universal Pictures and its streaming-service cousin have closed a $400 million-plus megadeal to buy a new “Exorcist” trilogy, signaling a sudden willingness to compete head-on with the technology giants that are upending entertainment industry economics.Donna Langley, the film studio’s chairwoman, teamed with Peacock, NBCUniversal’s fledgling streaming service, to make the purchase, which is expected to be announced this week, according to three people briefed on the matter. These people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the still-private deal, said the price was in the vicinity of the $465 million that Netflix paid in March for two sequels to the 2019 whodunit “Knives Out.”Universal had no immediate comment.The “Knives Out” and “Exorcist” deals — both negotiated by Bryan Lourd, the Creative Artists superagent — solidify a new streaming gold rush. The eye-popping talent paydays of 2017 and 2018, when Netflix scooped up big-name television creators, have migrated to the film world.The proliferation of streaming services and their scramble for subscribers has driven up prices for established film properties and filmmakers. At the same time, traditional movie companies are under more pressure than ever to control those same creative assets; moviegoing has been severely disrupted by the pandemic and may never fully recover.Linda Blair as the possessed Regan in the original “Exorcist,” which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including best picture.Warner Bros. Entertainment, via Associated PressIt is surprising, however, that Universal and Peacock have come to the table in such a major way. NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, has started to devote more resources to the little-watched Peacock. Programming from the Tokyo Olympics is available on the service, for instance. But Hollywood has heretofore viewed the year-old Peacock as unwilling to compete for top-tier movie deals.Universal’s decision to revisit “The Exorcist” is striking in and of itself. The R-rated 1973 film about a baffled mother (Ellen Burstyn) and her demonically possessed daughter (Linda Blair) was a global box office sensation — “the biggest thing to hit the industry since Mary Pickford, popcorn, pornography and ‘The Godfather,’” as Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times in 1974. It has become a cultural touchstone, the type of film that fans and critics guard as sacrosanct.Universal is not remaking “The Exorcist,” which was directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay that William Peter Blatty adapted from his own novel. But the studio will, for the first time, return the Oscar-winning Ms. Burstyn to the franchise. (Two forgettable “Exorcist” sequels and a prequel were made without her between 1977 and 2004.) Joining her will be Leslie Odom Jr., a Tony winner for “Hamilton” on Broadway and a double Oscar nominee for “One Night in Miami.” He will play the father of a possessed child. Desperate for help, he tracks down Ms. Burstyn’s character.Suffice it to say, Satan is not thrilled to see her again.David Gordon Green, known for Universal’s blockbuster 2018 reboot of the “Halloween” horror franchise, will direct the new “Exorcist” films and serve as a screenwriter. The horror impresario Jason Blum (“Get Out,” the “Purge” series) is among the producers, along with David Robinson, whose company, the independent Morgan Creek Entertainment, has held the “Exorcist” movie rights. The Blumhouse film executive Couper Samuelson is among the executive producers. (Blumhouse has a first-look deal with Universal.)The first film in the trilogy is expected to arrive in theaters in late 2023. Under the terms of the deal, the second and third films could debut on Peacock, according to one of the people briefed on the matter.Donna Langley, Universal’s chairwoman, and the horror maestro Jason Blum, who will help produce the new trilogy.Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for CinemaconIn a business sense, the deal reflects the boldness of Ms. Langley, chairwoman of the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group. In the wake of the pandemic, which brought movie production to a halt, she led an effort to develop safety protocols to get the assembly lines moving again. In the case of “Exorcist,” she led a push inside NBCUniversal to pull off the big-money deal.The cost of the package is so high because Ms. Langley and her deals maven, Jimmy Horowitz, did not play by Hollywood’s old economic rules; they took a risk and played by new ones — those used by streaming insurgents like Netflix, Amazon and Apple to outbid traditional film companies, at least until now.The old model, the one that studios have used for decades to make high-profile film deals, involves paying fees upfront and then sharing a portion of the revenue from ticket sales, DVD purchases and television rerun licensing around the world. The bigger the hit, the bigger the “back end” paydays for certain talent partners.The streaming giants have done it differently. They pay more upfront — usually much, much more — in lieu of any back-end payments, which gives them complete control over future revenue. It means that talent partners get paid as if their projects are hits before they are released (or even made). The risk for talent: If their projects become monster hits, they do not get a piece of the windfall. More

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      in Television

      Skipping the Olympics Is ‘Not an Option’ for Many Advertisers

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      Companies have spent more than $1 billion on ads timed to the Tokyo Games, which will take place in empty arenas as the pandemic lingers.The Olympics have long been an almost ideal forum for companies looking to promote themselves, with plenty of opportunities for brands to nestle ads among the pageantry and feel-good stories about athletes overcoming adversity — all for less than the price of a Super Bowl commercial.But now, as roughly 11,000 competitors from more than 200 countries convene in Tokyo as the coronavirus pandemic lingers, Olympic advertisers are feeling anxious about the more than $1 billion they have spent to run ads on NBC and its Peacock streaming platform.Calls to cancel the more than $15.4 billion extravaganza have intensified as more athletes test positive for Covid-19. The event is also deeply unpopular with Japanese citizens and many public health experts, who fear a superspreader event. And there will be no spectators in the stands.“The Olympics are already damaged goods,” said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic soccer player and an expert in sports politics at Pacific University. “If this situation in Japan goes south fast, then we could see some whipsaw changes in the way that deals are cut and the willingness of multinational companies to get involved.”Panasonic, a top sponsor, will not send its chief executive to the opening ceremony, which is scheduled for Friday. Neither will Toyota, one of Japan’s most influential companies, which also delivered a blow to the Games on Monday when it said it had abandoned its plans to run Olympics-themed television commercials in Japan.In the United States, marketing plans are mostly moving ahead.For NBCUniversal, which has paid billions of dollars for the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympics in the United States through 2032, the event is a crucial source of revenue. There are more than 140 sponsors for NBC’s coverage on television, on its year-old streaming platform Peacock and online, an increase over the 100 that signed on for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.“Not being there with an audience of this size and scale for some of our blue-chip advertisers is not an option,” said Jeremy Carey, the managing director of the sports marketing agency Optimum Sports.A United Airlines commercial featuring the Olympic gymnast Simone Biles will appear on Peacock.United AirlinesIn a Michelob Ultra commercial, the sprinting star Usain Bolt points joggers toward a bar. Procter & Gamble’s campaign highlights good deeds by athletes and their parents. Sue Bird, a basketball star, promotes the fitness equipment maker Tonal in a spot debuting Friday. Chris Brandt, the chief marketing officer of Chipotle, said that the situation was “not ideal,” but that the company still planned to run a campaign featuring profiles of Olympic athletes.“We do think people will continue to tune in, even without fans, as they did for all kinds of other sports,” Mr. Brandt said. “It’s going to be a diminishing factor in terms of the excitement, but we also hope that the Olympics are a bit of a unifier at a time when the country can seem to be so divided every day.”NBCUniversal said it had exceeded the $1.2 billion in U.S. ad revenue it garnered for the 2016 Games in Rio and had sold all of its advertising slots for Friday’s opening ceremony, adding that it was still offering space during the rest of the Games. Buyers estimate that the price for a 30-second prime-time commercial exceeds $1 million.Television has attracted the bulk of the ad spending, but the amount brought in by digital and streaming ads is on the rise, according to Kantar. Several forecasts predict that TV ratings for the Olympics will lag the Games in Rio and London, while the streaming audience will grow sharply.NBCUniversal said that during the so-called upfront negotiation sessions this year, when ad buyers reserve spots with media companies, Peacock had received $500 million in commitments for the coming year.“You won’t find a single legacy media company out there that is not pushing their streaming capabilities for their biggest events,” Mr. Carey, the Optimum Sports executive, said. “That’s the future of where this business is going.”United Airlines, a sponsor of Team U.S.A., scrapped its original ad campaign, one that promoted flights from the United States to Tokyo. Its new effort, featuring the gymnast Simon Biles and the surfer Kolohe Andino, encourages a broader return to air travel.“It didn’t make much sense to focus on a specific destination that Americans might not be able to travel to,” said Maggie Schmerin, the airline’s managing director of advertising and social media..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}United’s campaign will appear in airports, on social media and on streaming platforms, including Peacock, but not on TV. Ms. Schmerin said the airline wanted to be “matching customers where they are, based on their viewing habits.”Ad agency executives said companies were regularly checking in for updates on the Covid outbreak in Japan and might fine-tune their marketing messages accordingly.“Everyone is a little bit cautious,” said David Droga, the founder of the Droga5 ad agency, which worked on an Olympics campaign for Facebook showcasing skateboarders. “People are quite fragile at the moment. Advertisers don’t want to be too saccharine or too clever but are trying to find that right tone.”Many companies advertising during the Games are running campaigns that they had to redesign from scratch after the Olympics were postponed last year.“We planned it twice,” said Mr. Carey of Optimum Sports. “Think about how much the world has changed in that one year, and think about how much each of our brands have changed what they want to be out there saying or doing or sponsoring. So we crumpled it up, and we started over again.”Visa, a sponsor, will not hold promotional gatherings and client meetings in Tokyo and will not send any senior executives, said Lynne Biggar, the company’s global chief marketing officer. The company’s commercial during the opening ceremony broadcast starts with a soccer game before showing Visa being used in transactions around the world.Visa scrapped plans for in-person Olympics events in Tokyo, but is debuting a commercial during the opening ceremony broadcast.VISANBCUniversal’s sports calendar also includes the Super Bowl in February, for which 85 percent of ad slots are already sold or are in discussions, the company said. Also on the lineup: the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in late 2022 and the Beijing Winter Olympics in February, both of which have put the advertising industry in a difficult position because of China’s and Qatar’s poor records on human rights.First, though, ad executives just want the Tokyo Games to proceed without incident.“We’ve been dealing with these Covid updates every day since last March,” said Kevin Collins, an executive at the ad-buying and media intelligence firm Magna. “I’m looking forward to them starting.” More