6/25/2023 0 Comments Shereen mitwalli onstageWe would have had a live presentation from news talent. The featured videos were replacing what would have been live on stage talent appearances. Discovery announced ahead of time that it would only be executives on stage-how much of your presentation was impacted by the strike? Because as soon as you say AVOD, ad-supported or even ad-lite, the first thing people think about, “Is it going to be like linear? Is it going to have lots and lots of ads and lots of interruptions and billboards and promos?” And it’s not what people would perceive ad-supported television networks to look like. It’s a challenge when you’re trying to take a brand like HBO into streaming with an AVOD layer. We see that over time the that consumers will come to AVOD because they’ll see the benefits of AVOD. We wanted them to know that the $9.99 product was going to be the focus of a lot of our upfront conversations, and then we see it scaling in the next year or two. It’s been a difficult area for the advertisers to really navigate. There’s not a lot of transparency about streaming services and viewership and subscriber bases. We just wanted to have one product out there that we felt we would bring the entire portfolio together. I was trying to say to the audience, “Put your consumer hats on, and think about what this product is at $9.99,” and into the future, direct-to-consumer and streaming will grow and share against traditional. You’re getting ads that are more targeted to the individual household than viewer. It’s going to have not just lite advertising but very targeted advertising. It’s going to have just about everything we do as a company. The deal at $9.99 that we’re going to put on the table for consumers is pretty compelling. And to get into the ad-lite business, you have to have subscribers. What’s happening with Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max is you have three properties that are trying to work their way into the ad-lite business. Max is almost here-how much of a role do you expect it to play across WBD’s conversations, and what did you want marketers to take away? And not just streaming from an ad perspective. What I was trying to do in the first 12 or 13 minutes, I was talking a lot about currency, advanced advertising and streaming. Then, of course, OWN is another part of the story, as is the NBA, as is CNN. He’s been the brains behind TLC for a long time. If there were one network right off the top of my head that stands out in that area more so than anything else in the industry will be TLC, in terms of presenting underrepresented groups in a positive light on many, many series on the network. That’s a statement to the marketplace that we want to be a leader in that area, and there is a growing demand for sponsorships of content that is either created by, viewed by or has a cast or theme around diversity, equity and inclusion. We had never dedicated a section during the upfront to diversity. That was something that we had never done before. Shereen handled the diversity, equity, inclusion opportunities in our company. My part of it, and my direct report Shereen Russell’s part of it at the very top, was designed to talk about the issues that are important to advertisers as we enter the upfront window. Steinlauf: I think what we were able to accomplish was a very seamless run-through for all of the content. Looking back, what are you most proud of from this year? WBD Unveils Max Ad Options Ahead of Launch, New Streaming Products at UpfrontĪdweek: You made it through upfront week. Steinlauf talked about the strike-prompted shift away from onstage talent (and why CEO David Zaslav was also MIA), the company’s Max streaming strategy and why-following a 2022 upfront where “we probably did not perform at the level of expectation” given that the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger closed just weeks ahead of talks-the company is in a much stronger position heading into this year’s negotiations. And though streaming played a big role in the company’s Wednesday morning presentation at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, it also leaned heavily on unscripted, news and sports content, with only executives appearing on stage due to the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. Discovery is about to unveil Max, the combined Discovery+ and HBO Max streaming service. In its first full year as a merged company, Warner Bros. We’ve already spoken with NBCUniversal’s Mark Marshall, Fox’s Marianne Gambelli, TelevisaUnivision’s Donna Speciale and Disney’s Rita Ferro. As upfront week presentations wrap, Adweek’s postmortem chats with every ad sales chief continue.
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