David Zaslav: Last News

Discovery stock jumped today as a formerly skeptical Wall Street is increasingly out pounding the table for the stock ahead of the David Zaslav-led company’s merger with WarnerMedia.

Discovery shares, which have been in a funk for months, roared back to life today, jumping 17% on heavy trading volume after a validation from a veteran Wall Street analyst.

A mammoth SEC filing by Discovery today offers some tidbits on its upcoming merger with WarnerMedia – like the new Nasdaq stock symbol, WBD – and pages detailing back-and- forth calls between David Zaslav and AT&T CEO John Stankey starting in February when the Discovery boss first reached out.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDavid Zaslav is relocating to the Left Coast: The CEO of Discovery, who is set to lead the proposed combo of WarnerMedia and Discovery, said he will primarily be based in Los Angeles by the time the deal is expected to close in mid-2022.“I’m moving to California,” Zaslav said, speaking Wednesday at the Paley Center for Media’s International Council Summit. He said he’ll have an office on the Warner Bros.

David Zaslav, Hollywood’s man of the hour due to Discovery’s pending merger with WarnerMedia, declared he will mostly live in LA by 2022 and be “very hands-on” in running the combined entity.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav tried to drum up enthusiasm for the company’s upcoming merger with WarnerMedia, a deal that needs a little love given the ho-hum stock prices of both companies involved since it was announced last May with a very long lead time — not expected to close until the middle of next year.

ViacomCBS chair Shari Redstone in a pink cardigan and black backpack, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell in short sleeves, Discovery chief executive David Zaslav in dark shades and a signature vest and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts pulling up in a car – these are of some of the first shots of media moguls arriving in Sun Valley, Idaho for the Allen & Company conference.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav said WarnerMedia’s content machine plus his company’s global reach will more than secure the merged ops a place at the Netflix and Disney+ winners table. At a media conference Tuesday, he gave multiple shout-outs to Casey Bloys, HBO’s hit The Mare of Easttown, CNN/Jeff Zucker, theatrical releases and an advertising-light streaming strategy.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDiscovery CEO David Zaslav, one month after the blockbuster announcement with AT&T of the deal to merge his company with WarnerMedia, acknowledged that he still has work to do to win hearts and minds of the people he expects to bring under one big content umbrella in 2022.“We’re going to have to earn the trust and respect of the full Warner team,” said Zaslav, speaking Tuesday at Credit Suisse’s 23rd Annual Communications Conference.He added, “There’s a lot that we don’t know that the Warner team is the best in the world at.”Zaslav, who would head up the combined WarnerMedia-Discovery once the deal closes, made a point of calling out the nearly 100-year legacy of Warner Bros., praising the studio as “the

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaFresh off of upending the media landscape with their deal to combine WarnerMedia and Discovery, Discovery chief David Zaslav and AT&T head John Stankey will touch down in Sun Valley, Idaho, in July for Allen & Co.’s annual media conference.They will be joined at the annual confab of power brokers and media barons by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, fresh off his $8.5 billion deal to purchase Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and will hit the resort at a time when most insiders believe that Hollywood and Silicon Valley are in the midst of an unprecedented period of consolidation.If more mergers and acquisitions are on the horizon, they may be hatched at Sun Valley, which in the past has been the locus of such

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, whose position was destabilized last week after Discovery and AT&T announced plans for a merger, says he will remain as CEO for the next 12 months.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav, a week after announcing a $43 billion deal to merge with WarnerMedia in a spinoff from AT&T, sees validation in today’s news that Amazon is swallowing MGM.

AT&T will pay Discovery a $1.77 billion breakup fee if it backs out of its deal to sell off its WarnerMedia segment, according to a Plan of Merger filed on Thursday.If Discovery backs out of the deal, it will owe AT&T a breakup fee of $720 million. The terms were disclosed in a filing on Thursday.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorAs soon as news broke May 16 about AT&T’s proposed deal to combine WarnerMedia with Discovery, the guessing game began about what the megadeal would mean for top executives at the company.The initial takeaways: It’s a good sign for CNN boss Jeff Zucker and a bad omen for Jason Kilar, who in his one year in the job as CEO of WarnerMedia might have ruffled too many feathers as he tried to refashion the company for the streaming wars.Discovery CEO David Zaslav is set to run the new combined entity, and Kilar was not party to the deal talks, suggesting that AT&T CEO John Stankey had lost confidence in the ex-Hulu chief ’s approach and strategy after hiring him last year.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorThe first swing in the talks that led to the union of Discovery and WarnerMedia was an email sent by David Zaslav to John Stankey on Feb. 13.That was around the time that the Discovery CEO and his AT&T counterpart had planned to meet for a golf date at the storied Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in central California that is sponsored by the telecom giant, as they did last year.

Discovery chief David Zaslav, whose sizable corner of the media business is getting a lot bigger, said he had previously looked at the idea of creating a “global HBO,” but all the best series were taken.

Makan Delrahim, who as the Justice Department’s antitrust chief during Donald Trump’s administration challenged AT&T’s combination with Time Warner, has a different view of the planned spinoff of WarnerMedia.

Discovery combine into a single media juggernaut was hatched during a series of meetings and calls in the Greenwich Village townhouse of Discovery chief David Zaslav.But it might never have come about were it not for Zaslav and AT&T chief John Stankey’s shared passion for golf. The two men were commiserating via text message about how, due to COVID restrictions, they weren’t going to be able to see each other in person at last winter’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Cynthia Littleton Business EditorDiscovery CEO David Zaslav is, by his own definition, a “fighter.”He’s poised to record quite a knockout if he pulls off a merger with AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit in a pact that will leave him as the ultimate keeper of the keys to HBO, HBO Max, Warner Bros., Turner channels and a growing global suite of direct to consumer streaming businesses.News of Discovery’s pursuit of a union with the erstwhile Time Warner assets came on so fast that executives and recent alumni of HBO, Warner Bros. et al were dizzy with surprise as word spread Sunday morning.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s 2020 compensation totaled $37.7 million last year, down from $45.8 million in 2019, the company said Friday.

Discovery has upped its stake in OWN to 95% with the network’s founder and namesake Oprah Winfrey receiving $35 million worth of Discovery stock in exchange, according to an SEC filing Tuesday.