So the good news for entertainment giant Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is that it is looking to hit the ground running when the split into Warner Bros. and Discovery Global finally hits. And Discovery Global will not be just a way for Warner to quietly bury its debt with a linear television company that is likely to sink anyway. New ad chiefs have been brought in, but that is not helping investors’ outlook much. In fact, shares are down over 2% in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s trading.
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The new presidents of United States advertising sales are Robert “Bobby” Voltaggio and Ryan Gould. Gould has been with Warner since 2012, when Turner Broadcasting picked up Bleacher Report. Recently, Gould became head of streaming, digital and advanced advertising sales, a role he has been in since 2023. Voltaggio, meanwhile, stepped in in 2005, but became head of revenue and operations in 2019, where he remained until this new promotion.
Both of them, meanwhile, will be tasked with sales operations for both networks and streaming for now. Though when the split comes, it looks like Voltaggio might end up in the streaming platform. While Gould will be handling advertising sales, go to market, Voltaggio will be handling advertising sales, platform monetization. How their roles will be handled post-split, however, is not yet known.
Odd Sports Pushes Continue
Meanwhile, Warner is still making a play for the unusual sports market, carrying on with coverage of the Grand Tour with the La Vuelta a Espana series. The event has 21 total stages, reports note, and originally started showing just days ago, meaning the full series will carry on into mid-September.
Warner is handling a lot of the broadcast duties on this one, reports note, with Eurosport 1 handling live broadcast throughout Europe and the Asia-Pacific market. TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports 3 will get the Ireland and United Kingdom coverage, and Quest will offer up free highlights coverage. Moreover, once this series of cycling concludes, the whole thing will migrate down to Rwanda to cover the Road World Championships, demonstrating Warner’s clear commitment to unusual and, perhaps, underappreciated sports.
Is WBD Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on WBD stock based on 10 Buys and seven Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 48.46% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WBD price target of $13.86 per share implies 17.81% upside potential.
