Exclusive: NBCUniversal is slashing even more TV ads

What's new: NBCUniversal will reduce the number of commercial breaks in prime-time TV shows by more than 20% across all of its networks by 2020. Last year it committed to a 10% reduction in ad breaks.

• The company also says it's looking to decrease ad breaks during additional shows outside of the lucrative prime-time slot, like "The Today Show" or "Ellen’s Game of Games," although it hasn't committed to a percentage reduction yet.
• It also is looking to decrease ad loads, or ratio of ads to other content, across its networks and time slots. It previously committed to a 20% reduction in ad load across original broadcasts of several dozen series across six of its networks. It now says it will extend that reduction by 2020.

Yes, but: Just because a network commits to reducing ads doesn't mean it always follows through.

• A Pivotal Research analysis of Nielsen data last year found that TV networks generally that are trying to cut back on ads are having trouble shedding that ad load.
• Overall, total U.S. ad load rose from 2017 to 2018, despite increased calls from ad network bosses to reduce ad load.
• Per that report, NBC’s ad load was significantly smaller than some of its peers, but it still increased by less than 1%. 

Between the lines: Cutting down on TV ads is only half of the strategy. NBCU is also pushing to simultaneously provide better targeting options and also sell more digital ads.

• A spokesperson for NBCU says the company will expand its new lucrative ad format, Prime Pods, from prime time to more shows and time slots.
• Prime Pods help NBC reduce overall commercial time by letting advertisers reserve ad space for a higher cost during the very beginning or the very end of a show where a viewer is more likely to be hooked.
• When it comes to better targeting, NBCU will scale its new proprietary, AI-powered ad-targeting solution that reads scripts and closed captioning, helping advertisers connect its content at the scene level.
• In total, NBCU says that digital (mobile, desktop, tablet) and advanced (digital TV) advertising now accounts for more than $1 billion annually in advertiser spend.

The big picture: Selling digital ads can be tough when networks are up against the scale of Google and Facebook, but a barrage of reports about fake news, faulty metrics and bad content on those sites have pushed advertisers to consider scaled digital alternatives from premium publishers that can combine ad inventory.

• NBCU, for example, joined Vox Media last year to sell digital ad impressions across a big pool of publisher ad inventory through a premium ad exchange called Concert. 
• It joined other networks like Viacom, Fox, Univision and Turner in a digital TV ad exchange called Open AP, which relies on both Nielsen and Comscore data, among other data sets, to sell TV ads digitally across a bunch of TV networks. 

A big part of NBCU's push to transform its ad business comes from the company's chairman of Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships Linda Yaccarino, who on Monday released a memo opening up the premium advertising to more upstarts and calling for more transparency in the digital ecosystem that often relies on murky metrics and has become frustrating for consumers. 

• As part of that push, NBCU unveiled a new advertising metric called CFlight, which measures all advertising impressions across every NBCU viewing platform — whether those ads were consumed live, on-demand, on linear TV or digital platforms. It's been pushing to get the standard adopted across the industry. 

Be smart: Like all networks, NBCU is feeling the pressure to ready its ad business to meet the demands of the 21st century. But it's still seeing success in its TV business: In July 2018, Variety reported that advertisers increased the amount of money they were willing to commit to NBC’s prime-time schedule.