Jim Keller: Last News

Warner Bros. Discovery announced at its upfront presentation Wednesday the launch of WBD Stream, a new digital video offering bringing together all properties in its portfolio for advertisers.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Most of the nation’s biggest TV companies are planning to gather under one roof next week and discuss something that has little to do with traditional boob-tube economics but is likely to play a critical role in them in weeks to come. When Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and Walt Disney speak Tuesday morning at an event convened by The Trade Desk, they will give a tacit nod to the growing importance of so-called “programmatic” advertising to their many TV networks. In the not-too-distant past, programmatic sales were an add-on to mainstay TV commercials — and the networks were wary of ceding control to a technology that gave advertisers the ability to essentially use a software algorithm to insert an ad during a particular household’s streaming session or FAST watch, all according to the type of customer seen as most likely to be interested.

As it continues to refine its org chart three months after the close of WarnerMedia and Discovery’s $43 billion merger, Warner Bros Discovery has finalized the team of senior ad sales executives who will report to Jon Steinlauf, the company’s chief revenue officer.

Discovery has bought a minority stake in five-year-old advertising joint venture OpenAP, joining Fox, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS as a part-owner of the entity.

Jim Keller has left Hulu to head up digital and advanced ad sales at Discovery for its upcoming streaming service. Keller, who worked at Hulu for seven years and most recently served as vp, head of national ad sales, becomes executive vp of digital ad sales and advanced advertising at Discovery, based in New York City.

Hulu sales executive Jim Keller is moving to Discovery to head the company’s digital sales efforts ahead of the January launch of streaming service Discovery+.