Warner Bros. Discovery manager David Zaslav wants CNN to target on the specifics and established alone apart from a cable-news field that he claims is monopolized by “advocacy networks.”
Zaslav, who took the helm of the new enterprise this week, squandered no time laying out his vision for the media behemoth, which involves HBO, CNN, TLC, HGTV and film studio Warner Bros. AT&T spun off WarnerMedia in a $43 billion merger with Discovery, which shut past Friday.
In an hour-prolonged job interview Thursday with Oprah Winfrey at a theater on the Warner Bros. large amount in Burbank, Calif., Zaslav tackled concerns about the upcoming of CNN, as perfectly as the company’s numerous streaming choices and his $3 billion charge savings prepare.
The CEO advised Winfrey that CNN demands to be about reporting and fact and information. “If we get that, we can have a civilized society,” he reported. “And without it, if it all results in being advocacy, we never have a civilized culture.”
CNN has been beneath a microscope for considerably of the year more than its mishandling of superior-profile scandals less than previous manager Jeff Zucker. Chief between them was Zucker’s managing of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, whom he fired in December. The anchor was uncovered to be secretly aiding the defense of his embattled older brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, over sexual harassment allegations that resulted in his resignation.
Shortly immediately after, Zucker resigned in February, citing a intimate relationship with a colleague. The imbroglio brought about an uproar among CNN staffers, who had been indignant about Zucker’s exit and the imagined that Cuomo would get a huge severance package deal, inspite of breaking journalistic specifications similar to protection of his brother.
But even in advance of that, billionaire media mogul John Malone — a shut confidant of Zaslav — and a board member of the mixed enterprise, criticized CNN for its slanted protection.
“I would like to see CNN evolve again to the kind of journalism that it started with, and essentially have journalists, which would be special and refreshing,” Malone reported all through a CNBC job interview past November. “I do think great journalism could have a function in this long run portfolio that Discovery-TimeWarner’s going to signify.”
Beneath Zucker’s successor, Chris Licht, an govt producer with stints at “The Late Clearly show with Stephen Colbert” and “MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” CNN is expected to get an overhaul that features far more difficult information and much less belief programming, resources informed The Post.
This contains taking a closer look at the approach behind the network’s new streaming service CNN+, as well as a lot more broadly, using a scalpel to redundancies at the media giant’s streaming solutions, this sort of as HBO Max and Discovery+.
Throughout Thursday’s assembly, Zaslav warned that team reductions have been probable as he ongoing to get rid of levels of administration and brings together careers. As part of the CEO’s target on price cost savings, he reiterated his strategies to merge equally expert services.
“We really do not want to go to eight destinations. We want to go to a person position, and we want to see every thing we want to see,” Zaslav reported people explained to Discovery at the time, according to The Wall Street Journal. “When we put it all together, we had been substantially extra productive.”
Hollywood insiders apprehensive about that tactic as it could bury some of the media giant’s wide information. Some others have been much more concerned that Zaslav would concentrate far too significantly on charge-chopping, and puzzled. if the CEO has the “stomach” to devote on large-spending plan films and Television reveals to gas enterprise development while in price-chopping method.
They claimed Zaslav may have sticker shock, as the budgets are considerably larger in movie than on actuality Tv, which helps make up the bulk of Discovery’s business enterprise.
“He’s a really clever dude,” a studio exec explained to The Put up final month, shrugging off that concern. “I consider he’s up to the task.”
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