David Zaslav Says He Fought To End Strikes, WBD Showed “Courage” In Slashing Content Slate & Staff As Industry Changed; CEO Sidesteps Pay Query In Q&A

deadline.com:

“We’re at a very hard time that requires hard decisions, and many of them are unpopular,” said Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav reviewing the trajectory of a company that has slashed staff and shelved content in an landscape that’s completely transformed from when the Discovery-Warner Media merger was announced in 2021. “We said no sacred cows,” he told Andrew Ross Sorkin during a Q&A at the New York Times’ DealBook conference. “If we were going to start today, what content do we need?

What content is going to help us? How many people do we need? What should HBO look like? What should Warner Brothers look like?” He called WBD’s first big layoffs “brutal” but “these are companies that have never really been restructured for the future.

And so we really decided that we have to have courage, we’ve got to figure it out.” On the content side, the company recently raised hackles in the creative community by first shelving a finished Coyote Vs.

Acme before allowing others to screen it for a potential sale. It canceled Batgirl last year, raising the first big ruckus. Sorkin about accounting, which allows company’s to take write downs. “The accounting piece is really a misnomer,” Zaslav said. “If we produce a show, a $100-million movie…We’ve spent the $100 million dollars and if we don’t release it.