The WarnerMedia upfront will seem familiar to those who attended Turner's event a year ago with the addition of a new not-so-secret ingredient.
Donna Speciale, WarnerMedia Group's president of ad sales
Turner was acquired last year when AT&T bought Time Warner. AT&T combined Time Warner's Turner, HBO and Warner Bros. units into WarnerMedia. The Turner brand is being phased out.
Though something of a coming out for WarnerMedia, much of the presentation on Wednesday won't change that much. I'm going to showcase the content like we always do, Donna Speciale, WarnerMedia Group's president of ad sales, said. Conan O'Brien, Anderson Cooper and Shaquille O'Neal will again be there. In addition to clips of the Turner cable network series, Otter Media's digital media properties Crunchyroll and Rooster Teeth will be featured.
But this year, Speciale will be introducing WarnerMedia's special sauce: the data and analytics it now has access to from AT&T advertising unit, Xandr.
Turner Had Pushed Data Deals
Under Speciale, Turner pushed clients to do deals that were not based on the traditional broad age/sex demographics. Instead, she said the industry's future lay in more targeted campaigns, using data to identify audiences most likely to respond to an ad message.
She plans to include in her presentation a case study or two showing how much better targeted campaigns work when they're infused with the AT&T data.
WarnerMedia and Xandr began their collaboration last year and began pitching clients during CES.
In the first half of 2019, WarnerMedia has run 25 audience-based TV campaigns using the AT&T data and insights from Xandr. WarnerMedia also ran more than 200 digital campaigns using the Xandr data.
Now we can be a lot smarter, Speciale said. The AT&T data is so powerful and has such enormous reach, with 170 million consumer touch points, that it is now setting us apart from other media companies that don't have access to this data.
It's not the future, she said. It's reality. That's why I want to have some proof points at this upfront. To really show it's happening. It's working and it's real. We're proving that the big screen works just like digital does in bringing business metrics to clients.
That leads to a natural next step.
I truly believe is that my goal this year is to have guarantees on business outcomes, Speciale said. I want to get away from the traditional demo guarantees. I want to take it to the next level with attribution and have business outcomes be the guarantee that we do business on.
Working with Xandr and having access to the AT&T data means WarnerMedia can turn around its reports quickly. Clients will be able to make better decisions about what their next campaign should be. But Speciale said that even the best data can't work without human input.
We have to be very clear about bringing content into that conversation, she said. The art and science are the key. It can't all be science. There is a human element here that we need to touch.
Xandr is hosting its own event on Tuesday morning, but don't call it an upfront. We're a complement to what the upfronts are doing, Xandr chief marketing officer Kirk McDonald said. We're bringing data and technology to bear so we can add some enhancements to what they do.
WarnerMedia's networks have fans, and Xandr can help reach those fans more effectively, he said, noting that unlike some other merger situations, WarnerMedia and Xandr moved quickly to work together. Xandr wants to work not just with WarnerMedia, but with other programmers. Xandr can help fill in some of the gaps in the media buying process at a time when marketers are looking for more control.
Xandr to Promote New Tools
Xandr chief marketing officer Kirk McDonald
At its Xandr Front, the company will be making announcements about some new capabilities, McDonald said.
A year ago, Turner pledged that it would get its clients to spend at least 5% of their TV budget on audience-based buying.
We hit that number in the upfront, Speciale said. And while she's not setting a target this year, WarnerMedia is looking for growth in its data-driven ad products.
A big part of the WarnerMedia presentation will involve the company's upcoming, three-tiered, ad-supported, direct-to-consumer streaming product.
Speciale said she's been involved in figuring out its advertising profile.
What I love about the AVOD product is it's basically a clean slate, she said. We've been reducing commercial loads. We obviously know that is not an easy task to do, to try to undo a lot of history. Now with the AVOD product, we're going to have an open slate and kind of create it from scratch. So that's really what we've been working on more so.
The WarnerMedia upfront will seem familiar to those who attended Turner's event a year ago with the addition of a new not-so-secret ingredient.
Turner was acquired last year when AT&T bought Time Warner. AT&T combined Time Warner's Turner, HBO and Warner Bros. units into WarnerMedia. The Turner brand is being phased out.Subscribe for full article
Member Exclusive
Get Access to Our Exclusive Content
Learn MoreAlready subscribed? Log In
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
12/06/2026
Meet The Grumpy Onion Ireland's newest online sensation, all he wants is to ...
12/06/2026
RT stays Up All Night with brand new daily 2026 FIFA World Cup Vodcast
Adding to the fun around 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, RT has launched a brand new d...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
The WarnerMedia upfront will seem familiar to those who attended Turner's event a year ago with the addition of a new not-so-secret ingredient.
