Walmart (WMT) told Business Insider that advertisers can now use its shopper targeting and measurement data on linear TV through a new partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)

Retail media networks extending first-party shopper data into connected and linear television follows an established playbook: large grocers and mass merchants have spent recent years building ad businesses and then pushing that targeting inventory outward into off-platform channels, with the sequencing typically running from onsite display to offsite programmatic to premium video. The economics here split two ways. For Walmart the retail media arm is a high-margin revenue line whose growth story has been a recurring feature of its earnings narrative, so broadening addressable inventory reinforces that strand rather than the core merchandising P&L. For WBD the deal speaks to the pressure on legacy media to offer measurable, commerce-linked attribution as linear audiences erode; tying ad exposure to actual purchase data is the mechanism broadcasters have used to defend pricing against digital platforms. Deals of this kind are commercial agreements, not capital events, so they have rarely moved either name materially on the day; the tell is whether retail media revenue disclosure at the retailer and ad-tier commentary at the broadcaster corroborate traction in subsequent prints. The follow-ons are comparable arrangements with other programmers and any signs of exclusivity or measurement-standard friction, which have historically determined whether such partnerships scale or stall at pilot level.