Newly minted Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja addresses his first few days on the job as studio chief — when Mother Nature threw Los Angeles a curveball with devastating wildfire storms — on the latest episode of Variety podcast “Strictly Business.”
Ahuja gave his first interview since taking the reins of SPE this month at Variety’s Entertainment Summit, held as part of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. At the same Jan. 8 conference, NBCUniversal ad sales chief Mark Marshall spoke with NBC Sports host Maria Taylor about the company’s sports and entertainment schedule over the next two years — a frame Marshall described as “the greatest 730 days that any media company has ever had before.”
As Los Angeles woke up to the reality of the fire disaster that decimated the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles and Altadena, a community north of Pasadena, Ahuja reflected on the process of decision-making when it involves not just business strategy but also public safety.
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“Obviously, the situation… is very fluid,” Ahuja said. “You want everyone to be OK. Some of our employees have lost homes, many are displaced, but then there are other parts of the city that are OK. The decision is: Do we close our lot? Our lot has its own power and actually is in some ways a refuge for some people. So we strongly encourage people to work from home, but are keeping the lot open.”
Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, and NBC Sports host Maria Taylor speak the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES (Photo by Bryan Steffy/Variety via Getty Images)
Variety via Getty Images
Later in the day, Marshall and Taylor brought some much-needed levity to the event with a rollicking conversation about sports, strategy and hair, or Marshall’s lack thereof. Marshall was enthusiastic about the NBA rights that are coming to NBC and Peacock starting with the 2025-26 season.
“When you think about what it’s going to do for our company — you’ll have a game on every Monday night on Peacock. On Tuesday night, you will have games on NBC. And then after ‘Sunday Night Football,’ you’ll transition to ‘Sunday Night Basketball’ [on NBC]. We did a branding study [to determine] that it’ll be called ‘Sunday Night Basketball,’” Marshall said. “So it’ll change the complexion of what NBC looks like. If you look across NBC from morning to night, on average, 70% of all the hours are live across NBC. So this will make that even stronger as we look forward.”
“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. (Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded at Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and more.
(Pictured top: Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja with Variety co-Editor in Chief Cynthia Littleton)
Todd Longwell contributed to this report.