Warner Bros Discovery Ad Chief Jon Steinlauf Declines To Address Reports Of Aggressive Upfront Pricing Asks, Notes “Complexity” Of Merged Company’s “Different Paradigm”

deadline.com:

Jon Steinlauf, Warner Bros Discovery’s Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer declined to offer an update on the company’s upfront ad sales progress during Credit Suisse’s 24th Annual Communications Conference.“There’ll be a time for that,” he replied to the Wall Street firm’s Doug Mitchelson when the analyst asked about media reports about “aggressive” pricing asks by the company. “We never talk about the market while we’re in the market.” A day earlier, top execs from NBCUniversal, Fox and Paramount all affirmed at the same conference that they were seeing high-single-digit increases in upfront ad prices and are on the verge of wrapping up the process.Steinlauf did offer some color and commentary about the newly merged company, noting that the Discovery teams he led were only able to start analyzing ad data from WarnerMedia on April 11, the Monday after the close of the $43 billion merger, with the upfront season an immediate priority.

In upfront conversations with media buyers, he said, WBD has offered a package of linear, streaming and digital inventory under the name Premiere.“We have a different paradigm this year,” the exec said. “The way we’ve chosen to go to market with Premiere is not the way advertisers normally buy mixes.

This is a mix that consists of sports, entertainment, lifestyle, news, some syndication.” (Warner Bros Television is a producer of Jennifer Hudson’s upcoming syndicated talk show, which it made a centerpiece of its upfront presentation last month.)Given the assortment of options, Steinlauf continued, “This is a process that requires more complexity than we’ve seen in the past.