David Zaslav says he fought to end the strike, WBD showed “courage” by reducing the content and number of workers as the industry changed; The CEO avoids payment questions in the question and answer session

“We are in very difficult times that require difficult decisions, many of which are unpopular,” said David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said while discussing the journey of a company operating in a landscape that has changed since the announcement The merger of Discovery and Warner Media in 2021 has completely changed, reduced staff and stopped content.

“We didn’t say holy cows,” he told Andrew Ross Sorkin during a question-and-answer session at the New York Times DealBook conference.

“If we started today, what content would we need? What content helps us? How many people do we need? What should HBO look like? What should Warner Brothers look like?”

He called the first major layoffs at WBD “brutal,” but “these are companies that have never really restructured for the future.” And so we really decided we have to have courage, we have to figure it out.

In terms of content, the company recently sparked the creative community by initially putting a finished product on the shelves Coyotes vs. Summit before others can evaluate it for possible sale. It has been cancelled Batgirl Last year it caused quite a stir for the first time.

Sorkin on accounting that allows companies to take depreciation. “The accounting part is actually a misnomer,” Zaslav said. “If we produce a show, a $100 million movie… We’ve spent the $100 million and if we don’t release it. It’s gone. We get no real benefit from it. The question is: Should we release some of these films in theaters and spend another $30 or $40 million to promote them? And the team at Warner Brothers and HBO made some decisions. They were difficult. But when I look at the health of our company today, we had to make these decisions. And that took real courage.”

On the writers and actors strikes, the CEO said he is fighting to end them. But he dodged a question about his high remuneration, causing a stir on the Pictogram lines.

“The writers, the actors said, ‘Look at this guy, he’s getting paid tens of millions of dollars a year and we’re here.’ How do you deal with it personally? And what do you think about it?” Sorkin asked.

“My focus was that we had to deal with this strike. It really hurts people. Every day we went on strike and people didn’t work was a bad day,” Zaslav said.

“I fought, and Bob Iger. “Some of us tried to put an end to it,” he said.

When asked about his quote in a recent NYT story that writers are essentially “right about almost everything,” he said that largely applies to actors as well. “I believe what I said. When I was talking to Fran and Duncan earlier, I said, “I agree with a lot of what you’re saying,” referring to the president and CEO of SAG-AFTRA.

There is more to come…