Not as upfront about the upfront
Though publishers regularly shared commitment totals and CPM increases in last year’s upfront, this year’s slow market has the companies mainly keeping number specifics to themselves.
In addition to an overall soft ad market, companies are also dealing with the ongoing writers and actors strikes. For Warner Bros. Discovery’s part, the company says the strikes led to “modest cash savings” in the low $100 million range. The company expects a return to work date in September, however.
“We are in some uncharted waters in terms of the world as it is today and measuring it all, and so I think in good faith we all got to fight to get this resolved,” Zaslav said. “And it needs to be resolved in a way that the creative community feels fairly compensated and fully valued.”
A year after the merger
Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery was the final major in-person upfront presenter to cross the negotiations finish line, with its $6 billion in commitments coming in behind rivals NBCUniversal and Disney, as the pair secured $7 billion and $9 billion at the time, respectively.
However, with the company now a year removed from its $43 billion merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery, ad sales chief Jon Steinlauf was optimistic for different results ahead.
“The bottom line is we did not have enough time last year to be able to put the right strategy together knowing what the histories were with each of these companies, and we did the best we could,” Steinlauf said. “We had some successes. We had some failures. We probably did not perform at the level of expectation.”
The ad sales chief said last year’s early market also exacerbated the situation, giving the company even less time to come together.
“This time around, we’ve been together for 13 months,” Steinlauf said. “We now work in the same building in almost every city.”
Among the priorities, Steinlauf touted sports and streaming, with CNN being especially important in an election cycle.
“I think the side-by-side with sports will be streaming,” Steinlauf said. “Overall demand may not be up all in when you count everything, but with CNN, we’re heading into an election year, so we know that brings sponsors in different ways for coverage of the election cycle. The advertisers are paying attention to CNN, knowing that the ratings are about to take off as they always do in election cycles.”
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