Photos: John Cena And AEW Featured At Warner Bros. Discovery Upfronts Presentation
Warner Bros. Discovery held a presentation today in New York City, the first since the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia took place.
WWE legend and star of several Warner Bros. projects, John Cena, made two separate appearances during the presentation. The first was alongside director James Gunn to announce the second season of "Peacemaker" coming to HBO Max. Nicole Byer joined Cena for the second appearance as the duo announced the return of the TBS series "Wipeout."
An important purpose of today's presentation at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden was to show advertisers the "Discovery Premier" packages available to purchase. As seen in the photos below, All Elite Wrestling's Dynamite and Rampage shows were among the top programming featured. A photo of AEW star and member of "The Baddies," Red Velvet, can be seen smiling above the AEW logo.
"We're expanding Discovery Premier," Warner Bros. Discovery's chief U.S. advertising sales officer Jon Stieinlauf said to Broadcasting+Cable. "It will just be called Premier. We're going to keep all of the top 30-40 Discovery legacy lifestyle shows when they're in the first run. We're just adding to it the best of Warner. We have great audiences that come up to comparable reach to broadcast at a lower CPM."
CPM, or cost-per-mille, refers to the price advertisers pay for their ads to be seen by a thousand viewers.
A sports segment was also shown that featured a brief AEW clip, although AEW was reportedly not mentioned by name during the presentation.
On a related note, both WarnerMedia and Discovery have their own streaming services, HBOMax and Discovery+. It is unclear at this time if the two entities will remain separate or be merged together, or if AEW will be included in a streaming package.
AEW President and Founder Tony Khan was not present at the event, nor were any AEW stars at the presentation, which could be due to a live episode of Dynamite taking place this evening.
Here are the Premiere options that would be available to marketers this week across the portfolio pic.twitter.com/RaSrwOGOXW
— Jason Lynch 🇺🇦 (@jasonlynch) May 18, 2022
Introducing the new faces of Warner Bros. Discovery who joined us for our inaugural #WBDUpfront live from Madison Square Garden! pic.twitter.com/Mb7M6pogcf
— Warner Bros. Discovery (@wbd) May 18, 2022
John Cena is in the audience at the upfront and he's gotten a haircut since he shot his video bit with James Gunn.
This has been your John Cena Update.#WBDUpfront
— Chris Hayner (@ChrisHayner) May 18, 2022
Look out! 🥊 @johncena and @nicolebyer, the iconic hosts of @Wipeout are here to highlight why fans continue to *fall* in love with the @TBSNetwork, @truTV, and @tntdrama brands #WBDUpfront 📸 | Getty pic.twitter.com/4Qdr5u6BqV
— Warner Bros. Discovery Ad Sales (@WBDAdSales) May 18, 2022