Walmart linear – Walmart is expanding its retail media reach into linear television through a new partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, aiming to capture larger brand advertising budgets beyond its own digital ecosystem.
The pivot arrived on a Tuesday, marking a fundamental shift in how the world’s largest retailer plans to capture the attention of its customers. Walmart is moving its advertising business off the app and into the living room, specifically targeting the linear television screen.
In a move to capture major brand budgets that have traditionally remained out of reach for retailers. the company is partnering with Warner Bros. Discovery. The deal allows advertisers to leverage Walmart’s specific shopper targeting and purchase measurement data directly within linear TV inventory. This includes networks like TBS, TLC, and TruTV, as well as live sports programming when those channels carry them. Advertisers will access this inventory through a private marketplace deal on Walmart’s demand-side platform.
For years. Walmart has funneled its massive ad business—which hit $6.4 billion in 2025—into performance marketing centered on its own stores. sites. and apps. These properties provide a clear path to conversion, but they also possess a finite amount of advertising space. To scale further, the retailer is actively expanding into media environments it does not own. This transition follows a period of aggressive infrastructure building: the 2024 acquisition of TV-maker Vizio. and the recent purchase of Vibe.co. an adtech firm focused on streaming TV.
Khurrum Malik. Walmart Connect’s vice president of business and product marketing. notes that the push into linear TV is a direct response to agencies and brands asking for consistency. As audience attention remains split between connected TV and traditional broadcasts. advertisers are searching for a way to track the effectiveness of their campaigns across both formats. Walmart experimented with this as early as 2024. when it partnered with NBCUniversal to run shoppable ads during live Thanksgiving sports programming.
The strategy creates a distinct contrast to the industry’s typical “walled gardens.” While giants like Meta and YouTube require advertisers to use their proprietary tools. Malik describes Walmart as a “friendly garden.” The company is explicitly making its data available through competitor ad-buying tools. including a new partnership with Yahoo DSP to target audiences on Vizio. and a separate integration between the Walmart DSP and Spotify covering audio. video. and display ads.
This expansion comes as the retail media sector grows into a $203 billion market, according to EMARKETER. However, the space is increasingly crowded with more than 200 retail media networks globally. This proliferation has created friction, with some advertising professionals pointing to a lack of standardization in how success is measured. A recent audit by ISBA and MediaSense of five UK-based retail media networks highlighted this. finding five different definitions for what constitutes an “attributed sale.”.
As retail media moves beyond the confines of e-commerce sites, the pressure to prove ROI intensifies. Kevin Dunn. chief revenue officer of Experian Marketing Services. anticipates the conversation will shift from simply choosing which networks to appear on. to learning how to force disparate properties to work in concert. For his part. Malik insists that accountability must scale alongside the media mix. stating that Walmart will continue to work with third-party measurement firms alongside its own data.
For now, the strategy is one of cautious escalation. The company intends to start slow and then go fast, scaling as the solution proves its worth to advertisers. With eyes set on more non-digital channels. Walmart is positioning its shopping data as the bridge that connects the physical store to the television screen.
Walmart retail media linear TV Warner Bros. Discovery advertising Vizio Vibe.co Walmart Connect