The company highlighted upcoming Max originals, including a second season of the Pretty Little Liars spinoff, new seasons of Hacks and Tokyo Vice, as well as the premiere of DC’s The Penguin.
“Chip and Joanna Gaines and Magnolia Network also feature prominently in our overall strategy,” said Bloys about Max’s debut.
Adweek’s latest Media Visionary, Conan O’Brien, is also coming to Max with the launch of his new series Conan O’Brien Must Go, an international travel series currently in production. O’Brien had previously teased an upcoming show on HBO Max after leaving late-night television, but it’s unclear if this is the project he first mentioned.
Max added to its roster of talent with Robert Downey Jr. in the new series Downey’s Dream Cars, where the star tries to reimagine classic cars.
On the linear side, a pre-recorded Guy Fieri introduced Kathleen Finch, chairman and chief content officer of the U.S. networks group, who unveiled a new slate of content, including Ellen DeGeneres’ return to TV with a series about saving gorillas.
Reality show Barbie Dream House will be arriving on TLC, and TBS is bringing back The Joe Schmo Show and introducing new original Dinner and a Movie.
Shark Week is also returning to Discovery again, and this year Jason Momoa will host.
Even more capabilities
As the company preps for Max’s rollout, a new digital video product—WBD Stream—will also be available to advertisers this upfront.
The solution brings together the company’s ad products from across Discovery+ and HBO Max into a single suite of services, available on Max, Discovery+ and WBD’s full suite of digital video assets.
“A lot of our positioning to advertisers will be not only is Max the one to watch, it’s the one to buy,” Jim Keller, evp, digital ad sales and advanced advertising, told Adweek ahead of the presentation. “It’s the one that should anchor your video strategy, your streaming strategy.”
The product is designed to allow advertisers to maximize reach across multiple screens and devices, and WBD Stream includes digital inventory from owned and operated sites and apps and third-party partnerships with dynamic ad insertion.
“This is a huge reach play, but also a huge targeting play,” said Keller.
Advertisers can use audience targeting to leverage internal data or WBD’s 140 audience segments. WBD Stream will be sold separately from advertising for Max and Discovery+ and will run across all OTT offerings.
Ahead of the upfront, WBD announced measurement and attribution partnerships with 605, ABCS Insights, Disqo, EDO, LoopMe and Pilotly for linear, digital and advanced audiences.
“We’ve been working hard at WBD, along with the rest of the industry, to be able to count the reach and frequency of [all audiences] with the VideoAmps and the Comscores of the world, which we’ve already announced,” Andrea Zapata, evp, head of ad sales research, told Adweek. “From a currency perspective, it’s not just the totality of our streaming and our linear, it’s also about how you get targeted and more optimized, and ultimately, how you show efficacy.”
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