• by Wayne Friedman , May 18, 2021

Amid its blockbuster announcement — its proposed $43 billion merger with WarnerMedia — Discovery's upfront presentation touted efforts to entice TV marketers with its broader audience reach, as well as its rising TV production.

For 2021, Discovery says it will produce 5,000 new hours of linear TV, which it says translates into 15 new episodes a night. And for its new premium streaming platform, discovery+, launched earlier this year, the company says the platform will have hundreds of exclusive series.

“Our streaming service is built to complement linear, not cannibalize it,” said John Steinlauf, chief U.S. advertising sales officer for Discovery.

The day before, in announcing its proposed merger deal with WarnerMedia deal, President-CEO of Discovery David Zaslav said the combined company would spend $20 billion in producing TV/movie content per year.

Discovery channels have an unduplicated reach of 173 million U.S. consumers across all its linear TV networks and digital properties, according to Nielsen Media Impact November 2020 study, Steinlauf says.

This includes 24 million viewers who only watch Discovery content on digital, resulting in a 16% incremental reach with digital, he adds.

Looking at specific demographics -- women 25-54 -- Discovery has 62 of the top 100 entertainment programs in prime time.

It also has the top three women 25-54 networks overall: HGTV, TLC, and Food Network, Nielsen's season-to-date data through March. These results exclude sports and new programming.

In addition, Discovery is also on many digital media platforms that do well with young demographics. Under its partnership with Group Nine Media digital platforms, Discovery says it reaches 18% of women 18-49.

Believing the company does well with a broader range of TV viewers, Steinlauf says, speaking directly to TV advertisers in the presentation:
“You are already buying digital on total audience delivery. Now, we want you to consider doing the same in linear. During this upfront, we are offering advantages to clients, who shift to 18+ or 25+ CPMs [cost per thousand viewers].”

Amidst a move where TV network groups are looking to find more ways to connect their advertisers' messaging with business outcomes, Discovery Inc. also announced a deal with iSpot.tv for cross-platform measurement, web attribution and effectiveness.

Discovery says that through its TV Conversions and Unified Measurement platforms, iSpot can show the connection of ad exposures generated from its networks and streaming properties to sales activities.

Discovery used iSpot.tv data in the past for its TV advertising data -- including verified impressions on a household basis, demographic information of viewership, spend estimations and the interruption rates and ad exposure duration for all TV.

Other attribution partners for Discovery include Nielsen, Comscore, Kantar Millward Brown, LiveRamp, IRI, Data Plus Math and others.