Warner Bros. Discovery

Warner Bros. Discovery sets its direct-to-consumer strategy — which includes a new FAST offering.

The network is on a pace to drop below $1 billion in profit for the first time in years, according to people familiar with its operations, amid steep declines in TV viewership.

On Wednesday, Jon Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer, Warner Bros. Discovery, announced the leadership group for the company’s combined ad sales team, which includes ohn Dailey leading cross-company partnerships and new business; Jon Diament overseeing linear and digital sales for TBS Sports, TNT Sports, Discovery Channel, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, truTV, Science Channel, NBA TV and MotorTrend; Laura Galietta leading integrated ad sales marketing across all digital and linear properties; and Karen Grinthal overseeing linear and digital sales and revenue for Food Network, TLC, TBS Entertainment, OWN, Cooking Channel, Cartoon Network and WB syndication.a

Three-plus months after emerging from a $43 billion merger, Warner Bros. Discovery has completed its communications executive roster. Nathaniel Brown, who formerly headed communications for Discovery and was named chief corporate communications officer at WBD in May, conveyed the news to employees in an internal memo. Along with new titles and posts for eight U.S.-based execs and two in the international ranks, Brown’s memo disclosed that eight veterans of the pre-merger companies are preparing to exit WBD after a transition period.

Warner Bros. Discovery renewed contracts for two of its most senior executives, Gunnar Wiedenfels, its chief financial officer, and Bruce Campbell, its chief revenue and strategy officer, ensuring that two of CEO David Zaslav’s key lieutenants will be around for the next few years of the company’s early steps as the newly combined aggregate of the former WarnerMedia and Discovery Communications.

For decades, HBO has been an anchor of the cable portion of Television Critics Association’s press tour with the network’s signature three-hour block of wall-to-wall panels packed with big stars. This summer, for the first time in as long as anyone can remember, there will be no HBO presence at TCA in Pasadena. In fact, the entire newly merged Warner Bros. Discovery is skipping the upcoming press tour as the company is going through the integration process, including layoffs, with the next wave rumored to come during TCA.

The head of Warner Bros. Discovery said the media industry will focus on creating fewer, better shows as the streaming TV wars enter a new phase after Netflix’s surprise loss of customers earlier this year. “The world has changed and it’s not about how much, it’s about how good,” CEO David Zaslav told reporters Tuesday at Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley Conference in Idaho.

Tech executives from Warner Bros. Discovery, Sinclair, Hearst, Vizrt and Vice Media Group told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week the public cloud’s appeal is growing for content sharing and archiving workflows but cautioned the entire metadata process needs more care and attention to maximize cloud storage’s advantages.

Adrienne O’Riain is leaving the Turner networks after 11 years, most recently as SVP, original programming for TNT, TBS and truTV, serving as co-head of scripted development for the TNets. O’Riain is the latest senior programming executive to leave the TNets following the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger as WarnerMedia’s ad-supported entertainment linear networks became one of the first cost-saving targets for the new regime.

Two more executives are departing Warner Bros. Discovery. Todd Weiser and Corie Henson are leaving their respective roles. Henson was executive vice president, head of unscripted programming for TBS, TNT and truTV. She led and oversaw unscripted creative development and production for all three cable brands after joining WarnerMedia in December 2019. Henson oversaw competition shows such as TBS’s The Cube and Wipeout, TNT’s Shaq Life and truTV’s Big Trick Energy.

CNN is holding a town-hall meeting on Thursday amid a turbulent two months at the cable news network, which is promising a new direction one month into the tenure of its new President Chris Licht. Licht and the leadership at CNN’s new corporate owner, Warner Bros. Discovery, have signaled they’d like to make a shift in the company’s direction from former chief Jeff Zucker, who left his post amid controversy.

As other TV networks were revealing details on upfront deal-making and pricing, Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer of Warner Bros. Discovery Jon Steinlauf was much more muted at an investor conference on Wednesday. “We are not going to talk about the market,” said Steinlauf, speaking at the Credit Suisse Communications conference. “This is not the time for that.” But he added some insight. “We are active; we are negotiating; we are talking to everybody; we are closing deals; we are being patient.”

Warner Bros. Discovery, two months after closing its $43 billion merger, has taken the first step toward reducing its global workforce, initiating voluntary buyouts in its U.S. advertising sales division. Over time, the cuts will see up to 30% fewer employees in sales. Warner Bros. Discovery has about 3,000 workers in sales, half of them based in the U.S. The timeline for the cuts is not completely clear, according to the source, but plans call for voluntary buyouts to be followed by non-voluntary measures including layoffs.

The company has chosen Luis Silberwasser, currently president of U.S. networks for TelevisaUnivision, to be chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. The new role instantly makes Silberwasser one of the most powerful executives in the world of sports, and one of the most high-profile Latino executives in media.

Warner Bros. Discovery said it is working with BrightLine to provide two advanced advertising products — Click-to-Contact and Viewer’s Choice. The products are being sold in the upfront and will be available on Discovery+ in the fourth quarter.

A little more than a month after Warner Bros. Discovery announced it was pulling the plug on CNN+, CNN began laying off affected staffers Tuesday, according to multiple sources.

Without mentioning CNN+, new CNN CEO Chris Licht on Wednesday set out the company’s plans for the rudderless news network. Those plans involve a morning show, a Sunday-night showcase and avoiding the kinds of advocacy journalism that has infected cable news. (Photo: Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)

HBO Max and Discovery Plus, brought together when Discovery acquired WarnerMedia, are still likely to be combined, the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery told media buyers at its inaugural upfront presentation. “In the not-too-distant future, we see a unique possibility to bring all these incredible stories and brands that shape culture, that delight, amaze and inform global consumers, and bring home these remarkable moments across all these genres, in one, awesome global streaming product,” JB Perrette, Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of global streaming, said at the upfront Wednesday.

Months before the Warner Bros. Discovery deal was completed, execs at the now-merged company promised to find $3 billion in synergy savings over the next three years. In a new memo sent out to Warner Bros. Discovery staff and obtained by Variety, CEO David Zaslav began to elaborate on those plans. In a list of “near-term priorities,” Zaslav mentioned that the company would “focus on financial opportunities.”

Johanna Fuentes is about to exit her post as head of global communications for WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group. Tom Ascheim, former head of the Kids and Family division, is also leaving in the latest round of high-level executive changes spurred by the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger.

The exec had been with the so-called “TNets” for 14 years, with the linear networks now under the oversight of Discovery’s Kathleen Finch.

Ad sales chief Jon Steinlauf sees demand for streaming, but “linear moves products off the shelves.”

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav Tuesday said he doesn’t plan on getting into a streaming arms race as Hollywood’s big entertainment companies bolster their platforms to woo analysts. “I know we have the resources, but we can plan on being careful and judicious,” he said during the company’s conference with analysts after the 1Q earnings were released.

TNT and TBS are moving out of the scripted game under new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, which CEO David Zaslav has promised will find $3 billion in cost savings across the new company in the post-merger era. The WarnerMedia-run cable channels will no longer develop new scripted content, three sources close to the matter tell Variety. It is unclear what will happen to TBS and TNT’s current slate of scripted programming.

Warner Bros. Discovery reported a 13% revenue jump and consistent streaming subscriber growth for its fiscal first quarter Tuesday. The results don’t include first-quarter performance from WarnerMedia, which Discovery bought this month. The company reported revenue of $3.16 billion and net income of $456 million. Shares rose as much as 2% in premarket trading.

CNN’s new streaming service CNN+ is under review by incoming corporate parent Warner Bros. Discovery as it looks to cut costs and reorganize the company, sources say. Warner Bros. Discovery, which formed last week out of the merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia, is in the process of shoring up at least $3 billion in cost savings in 2023, and it’s focusing on CNN+.

With Discovery completing its acquisition of WarnerMedia, the two companies’ scheduled upfronts are being combined into a single event next month. The first Warner Bros. Discovery upfront will be held during the week once reserved for the broadcast networks’ presentations on May 18 at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden — about four weeks after the transaction closed.

With a new owner, the 99-year-old movie studio appears headed back to its traditional sweet spot as an entertainment company. But the business of Hollywood is no longer the same.

Before the start of the first day of trading for Warner Bros. Discovery, analyst Vijay Jayant of Evercore ISI is calling the stock “undervalued” and labelling the company as “the first direct-to-consumer free cash flow machine.” WBD, the company’s stock ticker symbol, was created after Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia closed Friday.

Discovery Inc. on Friday named Jon Steinlauf to serve as chief U.S. advertising sales officer for the soon-to-merge Warner Bros. Discovery. Steinlauf, who currently holds that role at Discovery, will report directly to Bruce Campbell, future chief revenue and strategy officer for Warner Bros. Discovery.

David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery who will lead the new company, appointed many of his longtime lieutenants to key positions.

NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS may eventually find themselves on the outside looking in as the subscription streaming video industry continues to grow. That’s according to MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, who kicked off The StreamTV Show with a forward-looking assessment of which major streamers have the best chance at future success. Assuming that both the Amazon-MGM and Discovery-WarnerMedia deals go through in 2022, he said that the clear winners will be Netflix, Disney, Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery while AMC Networks will have success, albeit on a more niche level.

Warner Bros. Discovery is the proposed new moniker for the combined WarnerMedia and Discovery joint venture coming together as AT&T spins off its investment in Time Warner. Discovery chief David Zaslav announced the new name Tuesday morning as he held a town hall with WarnerMedia employees from the Warner Bros. studio’s Burbank lot.