The C.E.O. of a huge conglomerate takes on an entertainment business in turmoil.
.” Zaslav made a point of not competing in that realm. “It’s like a kids’ soccer game—everyone saw something that worked and started chasing the ball,” he told. “It’s way too expensive.” Much of his programming was economical, lucrative, and relatively uncomplicated to produce. “Discovery’s model was completely different than the Hollywood content model,” the former Discovery executive told me.
Two years later, Zaslav spent another twenty-five million dollars on an oceanfront mansion in East Hampton, where he began hosting a “Shark Week”-themed Labor Day party. His guest lists started to appear on Page Six: Les Moonves, Harvey Weinstein, Donna Karan, Martha Stewart, Jamie Dimon, Ryan Seacrest, Colin Powell. Even Roger Ailes was spotted at a Winter Wonderland party in 2014.
A.T. & T. saw the acquisition of Time Warner as a way to expand into a new but complementary field; the idea was that customers could stream A.T. & T.-owned content over A.T. & T. networks on an A.T. & T. platform. That deal is now viewed as a disastrous culture clash, between the Dallas-based telecom giant and the “creatives” who made up the teams at HBO, CNN, and elsewhere. Thereported that in one early meeting, John Stankey, the C.E.O.
He settled into a new office, in a leafy corner of the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank—a recessed space where he works at Jack Warner’s old desk. A curving conservatory window opens on trees and a manicured garden. By the window is a sitting area where Zaslav receives guests. There, directly behind his chair, is a picture of him with Malone.
A CNN insider described the network’s prospects as the merger went through: the cable business was dying, but CNN had a devoted enough following that, with time and investment, it might be able to reinvent itself. Staffers saw CNN+ as their best hope; even though its programming was somewhat limited, it might help accustom viewers to streaming news from CNN. But Zaslav killed CNN+ after just a month. Now the future of CNN itself is uncertain. Though W.B.D.
Zaslav was not alone in failing to project empathy. This July, as executives gathered for the annual media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, Bob Iger spoke in an interview about Disney’s initiative to control costs by “spending less on what we make, and making less.
Zaslav and his team have blamed some of their difficulties on the condition of WarnerMedia. At an investor conference, Zaslav complained that some of the company’s assets had turned out to be “unexpectedly worse than we thought” before the deal closed. The former Discovery employee told me, “We knew the debt would be bad. When the number came out, we were stunned and scared.” W.B.D. went so far as to investigate whether A.T. & T.
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