While Evans principal scenario was to package the chemistry between filmmakers and top stars, Zaslavs social objectives may be more corporately focused. Zaslav laughed but did not retract his comment. Zucker, who joined CNN in 2013 and led the network through the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency, abruptly resigned this week over a secret relationship he had with a colleague, CNN chief marketing officer Allison Gollust, which he did not disclose to the company as required. Zaslav had a hand in the launch of MSNBC, another left-leaning network, during his time as an NBC executive. The Discovery CEO also took aim at Fox News, describing the conservative outlet as much more of an advocacy network than a news network. I think overall wed probably be better off if we just had news networks in America, Zaslav said. Discovery is required to publish the ratio to Zaslavs pay to those of its median employee as part of the Dodd-Frank law. ", JEFF ZUCKER OUT AT CNN AFTER FAILING TO DISCLOSE CONSENSUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH COLLEAGUE: I WAS WRONG. All Rights Reserved. Discovery boss will soon oversee CNN as part of deal with WarnerMedia, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 16: President and CEO, Discovery, Inc. David Zaslav speaks onstage during the Discovery, Inc. TCA Winter Panel 2020 at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 16, 2020 in Pasadena, California. [41] Zaslav also received backlash for the removal of many of Warner Bros' animated programs from streaming platforms and pulling some of the service's content in general, including Final Space (which was written off for taxes), Infinity Train, Summer Camp Island, Close Enough, The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo and several hundred episodes of Sesame Street, among others, a decision Infinity Train creator Owen Dennis remarked rendered many of the programs effectively as "lost media". Zaslav wooed Scripps CEO Ken Lowe for a decade before consummating the $14.6 billion deal in 2018. Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Discovery, NOW WATCH: Customers expect CEOs to take action against climate change now more than ever, Unilever executive says, would unite Discovery with AT&T's WarnerMedia, which could concern WarnerMedia employees, "move-fast and break things" style of the WarnerMedia's current chief executive, Jason Kilar. Media tends to be a reflection of where the country is. A fiercely ambitious man with an appetite for the theatrical, Zaslav paid $16 million for the late Bob Evans home in Beverly Hills, originally telling friends he may spend three months a year in Hollywood, creating a livelier aura for his Discovery Channel. Did you say to the left? Kernan said, before taking back the question, saying he probably shouldnt have said that.. [45] He also is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Paley Center for Media and the Mt. David Zaslav, Discovery's CEO, will lead the combined Discovery-WarnerMedia. Mediaite regrets the error. But his new target list may include Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Reese Witherspoon or even the old Evans crowd like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. "Jeff is a good friend of mine, I cant speak to this issue, we dont own the company yet," Zaslav said. Eric Zinterhofer, board member of Univision, gave $102,000. Evans top films might share a weekend with two or three other wannabe hits; Zaslav confronts a mind-bending blur of some 300 services, subscription-based or video on demand, all competing for eyeballs. Together, Discovery and WarnerMedia will span every genre from Hollywood movies and TV shows to reality TV, to news and sports. Email us. Discovery chief says 'Journalism First' is new mandate at CNN His Greenwich Village home where the WarnerMedia deal was cooked up is now on the market, according to The Hollywood Reporter. If Evans faced a bad weekend, Zaslav confronts post-pandemic confusion: Netflix and Disney both missed forecasts for subscriber growth in the first quarter, and consumer spending on media shrank 2% in that period. The new entity will inherit the biggest share of cable viewers in the U.S., accounting for 29% of viewing time. Henry Kravis and George Roberts, owners of Business Insider and the German news empire Axel Springer and who recently purchased Politico and co-founded KKR Private Equity, collectively gave over $1.2 million. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. President and CEO, Discovery David Zaslav speaks onstage during the Even his wife, Clare Boothe Luce, herself a Republican member of Congress, chastised him publicly for his relentless coverage in Time of Barry Goldwaters GOP nomination for president. Email him here: joed@mediaite.com Last year, Zaslav vowed to take a hands-on role in the operations of CNN. Longtime Discovery chief David Zaslav, who will soon oversee CNN as part of his companys merger with WarnerMedia, called his future competitor Fox News Channel much more of an advocacy network than a news network on Wednesday. The Evans events promised a sort of promiscuous elegance: Behind one door you would find the esteemed Helmut Newton photographing two lissome nudes passionately entwined; or Teddy Kennedy swigging beer amidst a bevy of starlets; or Henry Kissinger explaining Vietnam policy to Jill St. John; or agent Sue Mengers disseminating film gigs along with quality weed. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Discovery, Inc.). Zaslavs generous compensation plan continues the trend of rich COVID era paydays for media CEOs, some of whom made a show of forgoing a salary when the pandemic hit, only to quietly return to their former levels as the crisis dragged on. He's used his salary to buy some of the most sought-after real estate around, buying the Hollywood home of "The Godfather" film director Robert Evans for $16 million and snapping up Conan O'Brien's apartment on Central Park West. Full transparency of political funding allows journalists to hold newsroom and social media platform owners to account. They received collectively more than $3 billion ($3,427,543,995) in the 2019-20 presidential election cycle and showed independent expenditures of more than $2.1 billion. See an updated version of our story below. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. While Kernen did not clarify his comments, he went on to say that he sees sports as being on the right side of the Discovery portfolio. According to campaignmoney.com, during the 2020 election cycle Zaslav donated $124,250 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee out of his total $253,250 in political donations. Zaslav, known for delivering fast yes or nos to business partners, would be able to move ahead with speed. Zaslav is expected to name Zuckers permanent replacement when the merger closes. Our system is awash in billions of political dollars. [2] Zaslav spearheaded the transaction between AT&T and Discovery to combine with WarnerMedia and create the combined Warner Bros. Discovery cant play any role in CNNs operations until the deal concludes. Edward Atsinger, a leading evangelical and co-founder of conservative Townhall Media,gave about $30,000. Jeff Zucker is considered to be the person responsible for the CNNs shift away from the nonpartisan outlet it was before his tenure. "Well have to see, really.". His 2020 pay was $37 million, and the WarnerMedia deal would entitle him to some 14.8 million in options, worth $190 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The results were surprising. He doesn't.". Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks. Evans fought valiantly for Paramount to release Last Tango in Paris and Tropic of Cancer. The Cook Political Report marks six Republican-held Senate seats in Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Montana and North Carolina as toss ups. For now, a trio of CNN executives will assume Zuckers responsibilities at the network. Sprecher also gave at least $106,500 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official campaign arm of Republicans running for Senate seats. Zaslavwill lead the combined company called Warner Bros. George Soros, a major donor to Wikipediawho funds many new digital media outlets through his Open Society Foundation (see our nonprofit U.S. Media Index), gave $3,679,800. Heidi Legg is the lead research fellow at the Future of Media Project at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. She owns The Atlantic, could still be the largest shareholder of Disney/ABCand funds many digital news nonprofits through the American Journalism Project, which her Emerson Collective helped to create. Fox News positions itself as a conservative-leaning network, serving those on the political right. [51], In 2022, he was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. A Discovery spokesperson told the Post that Zaslav didnt finish his thought, adding that he uses the phrase to organize his conversations around Discoverys business. Zaslav made a similar remark during an AT&T and Discovery joint news conference in May 2021, describing the left side of the joint company as everything other than the content. U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a roadside stop in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., July 26, 2020. The combined company, worth $120 billion in enterprise value, would unite Discovery with AT&T's WarnerMedia, home to CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros. A person familiar with the deal told Insider that AT&T didn't consider Comcast a viable partner because it was likely to be a slow-moving conversation, held up by thorny regulatory issues. Market data provided by Factset. A missed golf game in February led to an email between Zaslav and AT&T CEO John Stankey, culminating in their boards signing a merger deal on Sunday night. Zaslav also received $16,800 for a car allowance, $501 for home office expenses, $16,930 for personal security services, and $355,355 for private plane use. Correction: Mediaite has learned Zaslav was referring to the left side of the Discovery portfolio, not the left side of the political aisle. Other notable S&P 500 CEO contributions to Republican led groups in the second quarter include Robert Bradway, the chief executive of biopharmaceutical company Amgen; Daniel Amos, the CEO of insurance giant Aflac; and Gregory Brown, the CEO of Motorola Solutions. Discovery. "Squawk Box" co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkintold Zaslav his phone was "blowing up" from CNN staffers who are "desperate to know" his personal views about the Zucker situation. met 98.2% of his quantitative goals and 100% of his qualitative goals. In comparison, WarnerMedias HBO and HBO Max topped 69 million worldwide customers combined at the conclusion of Q3, according toAT&Ts third-quarter earnings results, which were released late last month. Despite the increased support from CEOs, Biden and the Democratic National Committee outraised their opponents in the second quarter. Man, you werent kidding, Kernen said, also laughing. David Zaslav, Discovery's CEO, will lead the combined Discovery-WarnerMedia. David M. Zaslav (born January 15, 1960) is the president and chief executive officer of Discovery Inc., a position he has held since January 2007. Most recently under Zaslav, Discovery acquired Scripps Networks Interactive, in a transaction which closed in March 2018. He was previously an executive at NBCUniversal. "Plus, David actually shows up. "After Biden released his economic plan, I would expect CEO donations to President Trump to accelerate. The answer would soon come. WebHome. Oprah Winfrey is a great example of someone who the world wanted to do business with, but David had an incredible knack for making people want to work with him," said his former boss Tom Rogers, who was president of NBC Cable where Zaslav was head of distribution and new media. According to OpenSecrets, an independent nonprofit that tracks money in U.S. politics, as of last week, 2,276 groups organized as super PACs have reported their numbers. But Zaslav is likely to get at least a warm initial reception. They are doing that, and there's still time," Eberhart said. His backers have praised him for keeping his average cost of content to about $400,000 an hour while his rivals now spend $5 million and more. Zaslav is on the board of Mexican programming giant Televisa, now merging with Univision. They credited the CEO with safeguarding the companys financial performance during difficult and rapidly changing economic times and growing its direct-to-consumer business. Of those donations, $1 million went to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC. And John Malone, a top shareholder at CNNs soon to be parent Discovery, has made clear he disagrees with Zuckers vision for CNN. 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"He's masterful at presenting himself as an aw-shucks guy from Rockland County, but underneath in the middle of a deal he's more aggressive than one of the great whites on 'Shark Week,'" said a friend. David Michael Zaslav (born January 15, 1960)[1] is an American media executive who currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Warner Bros. Then, sheepishly taking back his question, Kernen said, that was an aside. His corporate boss, Charles Bluhdorn, facing him in his screening room, shouted that public companies could not dabble in porn. He then decided to re-run the films. In May, I published anownership indexof the top 176 U.S. media organizations. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Zaslav&oldid=1142246299, American chief executives in the media industry, American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, Articles with dead external links from July 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with dead external links from February 2023, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 08:59. New Jersey, david zaslav political party, July 26, 2020 Discovery 's CEO, will lead combined... Outlet it was before his tenure now, a leading evangelical and co-founder of conservative Townhall,! Cnn executives will assume Zuckers responsibilities at the Institute for Quantitative social Science at Harvard University President to. Gave $ 102,000 super PAC CNN executives will assume Zuckers responsibilities at the Institute Quantitative. 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