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Magazine|How David Zaslav Blew Up Hollywood https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/magazine/david-zaslav-warner-media-discovery.html * Share full article * * * 302 David Zaslav in October. Credit...Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York Times Skip to contentSkip to site index Search & Section Navigation Section Navigation HOW DAVID ZASLAV BLEW UP HOLLYWOOD A merger put him in the driver’s seat at Warner Brothers, one of the industry’s biggest studios. It has been a wild ride. David Zaslav in October. Credit...Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York Times Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT * Share full article * * * 302 * Read in app By Jonathan Mahler, James B. Stewart and Benjamin Mullin * Published Nov. 15, 2023Updated Nov. 16, 2023, 2:00 p.m. ET It was April 2022, and David Zaslav had just closed the deal of a lifetime. From the helm of his relatively small and unglamorous cable company, Discovery, he had taken control of a sprawling entertainment conglomerate that included perhaps the most storied movie studio on the planet, Warner Brothers. The longtime New Yorker had always loved movies, and against the advice of several media peers, he had moved to Hollywood and taken over Jack Warner’s historic office, hauling the old mogul’s desk out of storage and topping it off with an old-time handset telephone. So far things were going great. He had met all the stars and players, was widely feted as the next in line to save the eternally struggling industry and was well into the process of renovating a landmark house in Beverly Hills. “You’re the dog that caught the bus,” the billionaire octogenarian cable pioneer John Malone, one of Discovery’s largest shareholders, told him. All he needed to do now was pay back the $56 billion in debt that he piled onto the new company to make the deal happen. LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE Listen 57:35 Open this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS. Money is never just lying around Hollywood, and the town was still reeling from the pandemic. But that was OK. Zaslav had set a “synergy target” — cost cuts, essentially — of $3 billion in the next two years, and now, with the clock ticking, he got to work. To help, he had brought along his chief financial officer from Discovery, an amateur pilot and former McKinsey consultant named Gunnar Wiedenfels. As spring turned to summer, they laid off hundreds of workers, shuttered or reorganized divisions and suspended or canceled hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of programming. Anything we don’t think is awesome, Zaslav told executives, stop production right now. Turn the cameras off. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. Jonathan Mahler is a staff writer for the Times magazine and the author of “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning” and “The Challenge.” More about Jonathan Mahler James B. Stewart is a columnist at The Times and the author of nine books, most recently “Deep State: Trump, the FBI and the Rule of Law.” He won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism, and is a professor of business journalism at Columbia University. More about James B. Stewart Benjamin Mullin reports on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact Ben securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or email at benjamin.mullin@nytimes.com. More about Benjamin Mullin A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 19, 2023, Page 24 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: How David Zaslav Blew Up Hollywood. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Read 302 Comments * Share full article * * * 302 * Read in app Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT COMMENTS 302 How David Zaslav Blew Up HollywoodSkip to Comments Share your thoughts. The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise. Comments are moderated for civility. SITE INDEX SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION * © 2023 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times. See subscription options