The Warner Bros. game lacked Discovery of 2026 to any spark, and not just because it happened at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.
Today’s event, ostensibly to sell TV commercial slots to the advertisers in attendance, felt like an awakening for WBD. Perhaps this is because in some ways he was.
Barring any unforeseen bumps in the regulatory process, Warner Bros. Discovery, formed in April 2022 through the merger of Discovery, Inc. and WarnerMedia (at the time owned by AT&T), part of Paramount Skydance sometime this fall. So, what happens when a major media company doesn’t have a fall listing to sell at a trade show, and almost all of them revolve around buying fall listings? You get a quick—and often forgettable—payment upfront.
The heaviest hitters in the WBD sat in this spot. CEO David Zaslav was not seen on site (let alone on stage). HBO President Casey Bloys was also not seen or heard from. However, Bruce Campbell, the company’s chief revenue and strategy officer, and Gunnar Wiedenfels, chief financial officer, attended the press lunch immediately following the event. Look, you better eat the company’s money while you can.
That left the Warner Bros. bosses. Discovery to announce Ryan Gould and Bobby Voltaggio to open the show, to, in the words of a press release, “reaffirm the company’s commitment to supreme partnership, performance and storytelling across every screen.” I think they mean the next four or five months.
About this promise of “partnership,” Voltaggio opened with a joke about the unusual circumstances.
“Good partnership is what drives us here at Warner Bros. Discovery,” Voltaggio said. “So, before we continue, we want to address Ellison — I mean, the elephant — in the room.”
Okay, so he’s no Jimmy Kimmel, but that was better than pretending we’re not all thinking the same thing.
“Listen, we’re not deviating, that’s not who we are,” Gould added. “Everyone here knows that there is change ahead and that there is change in our company. But there is change in the entire media industry. And we are very aware that your business is changing, too. But we believe that success is a team effort, so our best-in-class organization, the team and the people you know and trust so well, are here to help guide you through this transformation.”
Others on hand to help guide customers in the room included familiar names like Karen Bronzo, global marketing director for US Networks & News, Dana Nussbaum, co-president of global motion picture marketing, and Shawna Spinelli, global chief marketing officer for Direct-to-Consumer (streaming and linear HBO). They all started Interview for their jobs Share the latest incomprehensible measurements, which are not at all unique to the WBD introduction, and provide any crumbs of content left to advertise, respectively.
No shade on any of the executives who went through the motions this morning. They did what they had to do in a difficult situation. But the complete lack of star power moved to the almost complete lack of stars*. The Warner Bros. Discovery lineup includes Abi Phillippe, Adam Lefkow, Anderson Cooper, Brian Posen, Craig Ferguson (He Was Funny), Dan Schachner, François Arnault, John Ross Bowie, Kaitlan Collins, Katherine LaNasa, Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, Leslie Jones, M. Night Shyamalan, Morgan Spector, *Noah Wyle, Robbie Graham Koontz, Shaquille O’Neal and Terry Crews.
Perhaps the red carpet in the morning could have remained rolled up.
