WARNER BROS CEO Accused Of Not Understating How To Sell Advertising In Another Hit Piece!

David Zaslav gets attacked by another media outlet, this time for cleaning up how Warner Media sold advertising and refusing to sell advertising without getting paid properly. He's also being accused of selling advertising in a "male bundle" to reach male consumers. As if that's inappropriate.

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Warner Bros. Discovery overplayed its hand with hiked ad rates, insiders say, and advertisers are 'nervous' about layoffs that 'cut to the bone'
https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-merger-ad-sales-integration-layoffs-restructure-2022-10

WARNER BROS CEO Accused Of Not Understating How To Sell Advertising In Another Hit Piece!

In May, David Zaslav stood before advertisers at the TV upfronts to tout the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery's vast array of news and entertainment content. It was one of his first tests as chief of the new entity as the former Discovery CEO tried to prove he can tie together disparate assets like WarnerMedia's CNN and Turner Sports with his longtime company's unscripted fare — think "Shark Week" and "90 Day Fiancé" — for ad buyers making their biggest spending commitments of the year.
Zaslav called out Discovery talent, paid homage to Warners' founders, and briefly struck a humble tone, saying, "I'm a little nervous."
But within weeks, the tone shifted as Zaslav clashed with advertisers over what some called overly aggressive demands for rate hikes. He named a trusted Discovery deputy, Jon Steinlauf, to oversee the all-important ad sales business, and WBD started culling sales staff through buyouts and then layoffs as part of Zaslav's quest to find the $3 billion in synergies promised with Discovery's acquisition of WarnerMedia.
Many legacy WarnerMedia people have left — exhausted and isolated and seeing no future at the new company. Ad agency execs for their part are watching closely to see how the diminished sales teams handle their millions in spending. "I question if they have enough people to service their business," said a top buyer. "They've cut to the bone a little."
Insider spoke to 10 people about the challenges facing WBD — current staffers and former WarnerMedia employees as well ad buyers, all of whom spoke anonymously to project their job prospects and relationships with the company.
Corporate takeovers are rarely smooth and bloodless. Combining two massive operations — WarnerMedia employed 30,000; Discovery, 10,000 — was always going to be a heavy lift. The merger coinciding with the upfronts brought an extra level of difficulty. There were questions from the get-go about how WarnerMedia's prestige properties like HBO and CNN would coexist with Discovery's unscripted empire.
Zaslav is under pressure to make WBD a profitable force in streaming while protecting its traditional ad business — all as new ad-supported streaming players emerge from Hollywood giants Netflix and Disney and viewers show signs of subscription fatigue.
But the past few months have been messy in the sales operation, which Zaslav is counting on to drive some $11 billion in revenue.
A jittery integration
US ad sales chief Steinlauf presents the range of content at the new Warner Bros. Discovery at the TV upfronts in May.
Steinlauf presents the range of content at the new Warner Bros. Discovery at the TV upfronts in May. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery
The urgency to generate ad sales and find efficiencies as fast as possible left WarnerMedia people feeling isolated and anxious while they waited to find out what the new structure would look like and whether they'd be part of it. WarnerMedia salespeople, accustomed to giving input into the upfronts process, said they were kept out of the loop and noticed that Steinlauf didn't pop in at weekly sales meetings the way their former boss, JP Colaco, used to.
At the upfronts, WBD demanded a 30% rate hike, more than twice what rival TV companies sought, and despite the cooling of the TV ad market during the previous year, knowledgeable insiders said. (A source close to the company disputed that figure.) WBD's aggressive posturing and changing details about what was included caused it to lose ad revenue to other networks, they said. Zaslav for his part told analysts on WBD's second-quarter earnings call that the company "did very well" at the upfronts and "meaningfully outperformed" peers.