• by Wayne Friedman , September 3, 2019

John Stankey, chief executive of WarnerMedia, is adding to his responsibilities. He has been promoted to president and chief operating officer of AT&T -- a new position.

The company also named longtime veteran Jeff McElfresh chief executive officer of AT&T’s Communications unit -- succeeding John Donovan, who announced his retirement last month.

McElfresh and Brian Lesser, chief executive officer of Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising unit-- as well as senior WarnerMedia executives -- will report to Stankey.

Stankey reports to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who stated that the move was made to more “tightly align” its content, consumer relationships, and advertising technology.

In July, WarnerMedia, which includes all Turner ad-supported TV networks and platforms, completed upfront deal-making, posting double-digit percentage cost-per-thousand viewer increases, as well as maintaining linear TV revenues comparable to the upfront selling period a year before.

Soon after, AT&T said longtime ad executive Donna Speciale, president of advertising sales of WarnerMedia, would be departing the company Replacing Speciale as interim president is Gerhard Zeiler, CRO at WarnerMedia.

Also, around the same time, WarnerMedia said it would be launching a streaming service -- HBO Max -- in the spring of 2020, reportedly to be priced around $16 a month.