Discovery CEO David Zaslav Touts CNN’s Ukraine War Footing, Doesn’t Address Post-Jeff Zucker Direction Of Network
deadline.comDiscovery CEO David Zaslav dropped his usual quota of names during the company’s quarterly earnings call — John Malone, Jack Welch, Oprah — but one name didn’t come up: Jeff Zucker.This month’s ouster of the former CNN boss, a personal friend of Zaslav’s, is an 11th-hour headache at the news network as Discovery nears the close of its $43 billion merger with WarnerMedia.
The transaction is expected to take effect in April, around the same time streaming service CNN+ hits the market.Zaslav was asked during the call about the overlap between CNN+ and Discovery’s streaming operations, which include news.
The exec said that because the merger hasn’t closed, no firm plans have been made. He then went on to offer a full-throated endorsement of CNN.As the Discovery conference call was happening, viewers were tracking Russia’s hours-old invasion of Ukraine, which Zaslav called “a proud moment” for the news network.“I’ve been watching a lot of CNN,” he said. “This is where you see the difference between a news service that has real, meaningful resources globally, news-gathering resources — the biggest and largest group of global journalists of any media company, maybe with the exception of the BBC.“Here we are waking up this morning with a war.
CNN is going to multiple correspondents and journalists risking their lives in Ukraine, in Poland, in Russia, on the ground.
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