NBCUniversal chief Donna Langley spoke candidly on Tuesday about leading in challenging times, managing the expectations of high-wattage talent in a changing marketplace and how the entertainment industry has reacted to the dawn of generative AI.
“Put your seatbelts on,” Langley observed of general marketplace and economic trends during her keynote address at CNBC’s second annual Changemakers summit highlighting female business leaders and entrepreneurs. In times of crisis, it’s important for leaders to “acknowledge we’re in a moment of uncertainty — it’s rocky and challenging,” Langley told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin.
The wide-ranging conversation included Langley’s reflection on the entertainment industry’s reaction to AI and how it became a big issue during the negotiations that ended the writers and actors strikes in 2023.
“Very specifically to content creation and all of the attendant processes around it — AI is just another technology. It may be exponentially more powerful, move much more quickly, be much more ubiquitous. It’s going to have ultimately more of an impact,” Langley said.
There are clear ethical concerns that need to be governed, she noted.
“The ethics in our world is you’ve got to keep it human-centric and powered by humans, and that was a lot of the discussion that we had during the labor strikes. It’s probably a bit of incremental solution that will change when AI does become all the things we expect it to become,” she said. “But as we sit here today, the reality is all the panic and running for the hills was a bit premature. … These things tend to move a little bit more incrementally than we expect them to, and they drive disruption. But it happens over time. So it’s about having the right thinking around it and the right set of management tools around it. Welcome it. Be circumspect about it. Utilize it where you can get your feet wet with it, understand it, learn it — but don’t panic.”
When pressed by Boorstin on how NBCUniversal is dealing with the economic pressures that are bearing down on TV and film production, Langley brought up the wry humor in the new Apple TV+ series “The Studio,” which skewers contemporary Hollywood. Citing a storyline that has Seth Rogen’s studio chief giving a creative note to director Ron Howard, Langley admitted, “That’s all behavior I’ve experienced.”
For Langley, the key to maintaining a good reputation as a studio partner with creative talent is “to be very honest and transparent about what your issues are. And yes, there’s a huge amount of diplomacy and a bit of tiptoeing around sometimes,” she said. “It’s bit of an adage in our industry — that fast ‘no’ is way better than a slow ‘yes.’ And I think that’s so true. Nobody likes to be in limbo.”
The conversation concluded with Langley offering her thoughts on what Boorstin acknowledged was a big question — the future of film and TV and how the new-model NBCUniversal will operate after the company completes the divestiture of seven linear cable channels, which is expected by year’s end.
With film, Langley opined that the forecast is brighter than it might seem. The exhibition community and studios alike have suffered some cruel blows, but for now the domestic marketplace seems to be settling in at around a 20% decline from 2019.
“Film I think is like an ocean liner. It’s relatively stable. One of its engines might be sputtering a bit, but we kind of know where it’s going, and we have a pretty good handle at this point, post pandemic, of what the audience wants,” she said, noting the popularity of Imax events and premium experiences. “We also play a bit of a portfolio model, so we don’t get too stuck in any one thing. Animation is still working. We’ve got two big animation studios that are at the top of their game. Horror is cyclical, and it cycles quickly. But we’ve got somebody who’s very nimble in [producer] Jason Blum, who is a very nimble, willing partner for us. And, you know, and then you keep your eye on other trends. But again — 20% down versus 2019, that seems to have stabilized,” she said.
Television, which Langley now also oversees for NBCUniversal, is in a different place. Viewers are watching more TV than ever before but the distribution and monetization are in a state of disruption. The slimmed-down NBCUniversal will be heavily focused on pumping high-end titles and marquee sports into NBCU’s core channels: broadcast network NBC, cabler Bravo and streamer Peacock.
“People are consuming an extraordinary, extraordinary amount of content. How they do it is changing, and it’s changing rapidly. And for legacy media company like ours, we know linear is declining pretty quickly,” she said. “We need a network to be healthy, because we’ve got lots of sports rights, and those sports rights are going to fuel Peacock,” she said. “We’re going to be a very focused company where it’s a manageable set of challenges that we have in front of us.”
(Pictured: CNBC’s Julia Boorstin and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley at CNBC’s Changemakers summit.)
