After the Latest Warner Bros. Discovery Shakeup, David Zaslav’s Legacy Looks Insecure
The ongoing back-and-forth over the future of HBO and its parent company Warner Bros. Discovery calls to mind a line from one of the network’s great recent series: the business magnate Logan Roy telling his squabbling children “You are not serious people.”
The longtime industry leader in prestige TV, HBO has lately seemed endlessly reactive and panicky — chasing others’ success rather than leaning into its own. Last month, the channel’s streaming arm changed its name back to HBO Max, reclaiming branding that it had shed less than two years before. Now, the merger that created WBD, is being effectively undone, with HBO and the rechristened HBO Max joining Warner Bros.’ TV and film studios and various other lucrative properties on one island, and the flailing cable networks like CNN, TNT, and the Discovery suite of channels on a less hospitable one. What was intended to be a synergistic company where the success of cable chieftain David Zaslav — who led WBD after finding success at Discovery — is ending in an unwinding, and a retreat.
Zaslav has declared that the move is intended as a way of “empowering these iconic brands with the sharper focus and strategic flexibility they need to compete most effectively in today’s evolving media landscape.” And WBD is hardly alone in breaking up its offerings; the move echoes a recent one by Comcast, whose spun-off SpinCo contains the less strategically crucial of its cable brands. What’s striking, though, about Zaslav’s leadership is a certain endless vacillation — to be HBO Max, or Max? To bring together a bunch of entertainment brands under one roof, or to toss off the ones that no longer serve the mission, whatever mission they may be at this moment? In this light, the HBO Max name change can look like an attempt to tether together the streamer and the network ahead of a spin-off, but both name change and spin-off came as out-of-the-blue surprises. This speaks to a certain move-fast quality of leadership that has not, to this point, served well a brand built around the care and deliberateness with which it treats creators.
From an optics perspective, it can strain credulity that Zaslav’s actions are entirely built around maximizing shareholder value, as his pay package last year, a year during which WBD lost some $11.5 billion, exceeded $50 million. (In a symbolic gesture, a majority of the corporation’s board voted against approving said pay package.) Even those whose politics fall to the right of “eat the rich” types can pick up a sense that Zaslav is being allowed to squeeze WBD for all it’s worth. Much has been written about this CEO’s particular leadership style; it’s striking, though, how little a boss who came up in the lowbrow world of unscripted TV seems to understand or care how neatly he fits into a reality-TV-ready archetype, the rich and clumsy villain.
In the midst of the chaos surrounding them, HBO and its streamer move from strength to strength: Between “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus” on linear TV and “The Pitt” and “Hacks” on streaming, the brand has, just this this year, no fewer than four zeitgeist hits that are set to define the contours of the upcoming Emmy race. They speak to a certain quality that has, traditionally, been unique to HBO, and key to its success — consistency. If you’re not into the current Sunday-night slate, the thinking goes, don’t cancel your subscription: The brand is strong enough that the next rotation will have something worth your while.
Endless corporate dramas aren’t likely to trickle down to the attention of the average viewer. But a sense that the marquee brand of contemporary TV is in unsteady hands isn’t what a typical CEO might hope to project, either to competitors or to the creative community. HBO is a serious brand, with a serious history — one whose latest chapter involves its prevailing, somehow, despite being run in an unserious fashion. TV fans should hope that this great good luck can continue, or that maybe a month can pass without news of Zaslav changing his mind once more.
The longtime industry leader in prestige TV, HBO has lately seemed endlessly reactive and panicky — chasing others’ success rather than leaning into its own. Last month, the channel’s streaming arm changed its name back to HBO Max, reclaiming branding that it had shed less than two years before. Now, the merger that created WBD, is being effectively undone, with HBO and the rechristened HBO Max joining Warner Bros.’ TV and film studios and various other lucrative properties on one island, and the flailing cable networks like CNN, TNT, and the Discovery suite of channels on a less hospitable one. What was intended to be a synergistic company where the success of cable chieftain David Zaslav — who led WBD after finding success at Discovery — is ending in an unwinding, and a retreat.
Zaslav has declared that the move is intended as a way of “empowering these iconic brands with the sharper focus and strategic flexibility they need to compete most effectively in today’s evolving media landscape.” And WBD is hardly alone in breaking up its offerings; the move echoes a recent one by Comcast, whose spun-off SpinCo contains the less strategically crucial of its cable brands. What’s striking, though, about Zaslav’s leadership is a certain endless vacillation — to be HBO Max, or Max? To bring together a bunch of entertainment brands under one roof, or to toss off the ones that no longer serve the mission, whatever mission they may be at this moment? In this light, the HBO Max name change can look like an attempt to tether together the streamer and the network ahead of a spin-off, but both name change and spin-off came as out-of-the-blue surprises. This speaks to a certain move-fast quality of leadership that has not, to this point, served well a brand built around the care and deliberateness with which it treats creators.
From an optics perspective, it can strain credulity that Zaslav’s actions are entirely built around maximizing shareholder value, as his pay package last year, a year during which WBD lost some $11.5 billion, exceeded $50 million. (In a symbolic gesture, a majority of the corporation’s board voted against approving said pay package.) Even those whose politics fall to the right of “eat the rich” types can pick up a sense that Zaslav is being allowed to squeeze WBD for all it’s worth. Much has been written about this CEO’s particular leadership style; it’s striking, though, how little a boss who came up in the lowbrow world of unscripted TV seems to understand or care how neatly he fits into a reality-TV-ready archetype, the rich and clumsy villain.
In the midst of the chaos surrounding them, HBO and its streamer move from strength to strength: Between “The Last of Us” and “The White Lotus” on linear TV and “The Pitt” and “Hacks” on streaming, the brand has, just this this year, no fewer than four zeitgeist hits that are set to define the contours of the upcoming Emmy race. They speak to a certain quality that has, traditionally, been unique to HBO, and key to its success — consistency. If you’re not into the current Sunday-night slate, the thinking goes, don’t cancel your subscription: The brand is strong enough that the next rotation will have something worth your while.
Endless corporate dramas aren’t likely to trickle down to the attention of the average viewer. But a sense that the marquee brand of contemporary TV is in unsteady hands isn’t what a typical CEO might hope to project, either to competitors or to the creative community. HBO is a serious brand, with a serious history — one whose latest chapter involves its prevailing, somehow, despite being run in an unserious fashion. TV fans should hope that this great good luck can continue, or that maybe a month can pass without news of Zaslav changing his mind once more.