Brian Lesser is out as CEO of AT&T’s
Xandr, its advanced advertising business, according to a report by Reuters.
AT&T’s representatives didn’t respond to inquiries by press time to Media Daily
News. Lesser's decision to depart came after he was passed over for the job as chief executive officer
of WarnerMedia that he was pursuing, according to the Reuters story.
Earlier in the day, Xandr announced that Walt Disney, AMC Networks and AT&T’s
WarnerMedia had all agreed to a deal where their live, linear TV advertising inventory would be available on Xandr Invest, a data-driven ad-buying platform.
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Marketers could
use first-party viewership data from Xandr’s sister company, DirecTV’s 10 million broadband-connected set-top boxes, to help bolster their media plans.
In January AT&T said Xandr’s revenue grew 7% to $607 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, and 15% higher for full year 2019 to $2.0
billion.
Xandr was formed after AT&T bought buy-side platform AppNexus in 2018 for $1.6 billion.
Lesser, a long-term WPP technology and digital media executive,
was CEO North America of its GroupM unit before joining AT&T.