The WSJ Leadership Institute’s Megan Graham reports for the newsletter on one more big presentation from TV’s annual upfronts week:

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper started the Warner Bros. Discovery upfront with a tribute to Ted Turner, who died last week.

“Businessman, yachtsman, media maverick, conservationist: Ted Turner was so many things, but I knew him as the founder of CNN and Turner Broadcasting, a bold visionary with an unrivaled work ethic,” Cooper said onstage at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. “He believed in the value of people’s access to information, and he built a company that has impacted not only everyone in this room, but anyone who’s ever watched television.”

But Cooper ultimately turned the audience’s attention back to the matter at hand with an apt Turner quote: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

In addition to CNN and other onetime Turner networks like TBS and TNT, Warner Bros. Discovery owns properties including the HBO Max streaming service and cable channels like Investigation Discovery, HGTV and Food Network.

Its presentation to advertisers featured celebrities such as

• former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, host of a new true-crime series about murder mysteries in sports
• filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan on his upcoming movie “Remain,” which he co-created with author Nicholas Sparks
• actor Terry Crews, who will host a new competition show called “100 Cooks”
• Francois Arnaud and Robbie Graham-Kuntz, two stars of the ice hockey romance “Heated Rivalry”
• and Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa from “The Pitt,” the emergency room drama that avoids the streaming-era strategy of bigger budgets and fewer episodes.

That “more traditional production model that Casey Bloys and his team tap into allows the show to return annually, which means it can keep growing just as fast,” HBO Max Global CMO Shauna Spenley said. “Fans are watching this year at a rate 61% higher than season one, averaging almost 17 million in the U.S. alone.”

Robert Voltaggio, one of Warner Bros. Discovery’s presidents of U.S. advertising, also acknowledged “the Ellison—I mean, the elephant—in the room.”

That was a reference to Warner Bros. Discovery’s proposed takeover by Paramount Skydance and its CEO David Ellison. More than 4,000 writers, actors and directors have signed a petition arguing against the deal, saying it would undermine jobs and audience choice.

“Everyone here knows that there’s change ahead and that there’s change in our company,” Ryan Gould, the other U.S. sales president, told the upfront audience. “But there’s change across the entire media industry, and we’re well aware that your business is changing too.”

Related: To at least one TV editor, the Warner Bros. Discovery pitch to advertisers “felt more like a wake” than an upfront. [THR]

Noah Wyle revealed when season three of “The Pitt” will be set. [Nerdist]

The NFL cut a new four-year deal with Netflix for three more games and licensed additional games to Fox and NBC, Joe Flint writes.

Netflix, which previously carried games just on Christmas, deepened its relationship with the NFL by agreeing to a four-year pact that will include at least one Christmas game but also an opening-week international game, a new Thanksgiving Eve game and a game at the end of the season.

The streamer has been eager to add more live sports to its platform as a way to attract major advertisers and keep subscribers on board.

Disney’s ESPN, meanwhile, is reducing its “Monday Night Football” lineup to 19 from 23.

More: Netflix hosted its own upfront yesterday, promoting programming including a rom-com starring Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein, new seasons of “The Hunting Wives” and “Outer Banks,” and podcasts. [Deadline]

The revival of “A Different World” will stream this fall on Netflix. [The Grio] 

A “KPop Demon Hunters” sequel isn’t expected until 2029, but it will get a global concert tour starting next year. [EW] 

Both Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery offered advertisers cross-platform avenues to engage various fandoms. [Ad Age]

A growing body of research shows that people on GLP-1s are denting the restaurant business by cutting back on visits and ordering less when they do go out. The developments are roiling restaurants as they also deal with rising costs and try to hold on to any customer they can, Heather Haddon and Amira McKee report for the Journal.

A recent Panera Bread customer survey found that 17% of respondents were taking GLP-1s, a rate higher than the national average, and that they were interested in smaller portions.

“They want healthy, but delicious things that they actually want to eat,” said Jill Marchick, Panera’s vice president of consumer insights.

Panera has started offering options geared toward them, including salads stuffed inside Italian bread, and deals for half sandwiches and salads.

Olive Garden started offering a lighter portions menu nationwide this year, partly aimed at GLP-1 users. Customers who order from the menu are increasing their restaurant visits, though the cheaper items are less profitable than regular-size portions.

Meanwhile: In a national food culture full of passing fads, the annual excitement generated by ramp season has endured in a way that sun-dried tomatoes or bacon-topped everything haven’t. [WSJ]

Restaurants in Tokyo are attracting both locals and tourists by replicating New York eateries—even the fictional. [Grub Street]

Wendy’s restaurants abroad are swapping red color schemes for blue, the most controversial color in food branding. [Fast Company]

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