For a guy who has spent pretty much his entire career in television, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav doesn’t seem to be a fan.
Zaslav says TV is “a terrible consumer experience” these days. Just, you know, not his stuff.
At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Zaslav said the “biggest accelerant” to HBO Max’s worldwide growth says as much about his content (good) as it says about the broader industry (bad).
“The marketplace is really challenged with too many players in the market,” Zaslav said. “When people turn on — the consumers put on their TV, it’s a terrible consumer experience. In almost every market in the world, there’s just way too many choices. And you’re googling, ‘Where is it? How do I get from one to the other? How do I get into that platform?’”
Zaslav says his platform will be in “150 million homes” — or more — next year, solidifying HBO Max as a winner in the global streaming wars alongside Amazon, Netflix, Disney and YouTube.
As such, over time, HBO Max will be raising prices.
“The fact that this is quality — and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and and streaming quality — we all we think that gives us a chance to raise price,” he said. “We think we’re way underpriced. We’re going to take our time.”
Zaslav has also been taking his time on cracking down on password sharing. But it’s coming.
“We haven’t been pushing on the password sharing and the economics yet,” he said. “People are really starting to love HBO Max. That’s the key. We want them to fall in love with our content, with our series, with the differentiated offering outside of the U.S.
“It’s all tricky with the password sharing,” Zaslav continued, adding: “We’re going to begin to push on that.”
Warner Bros. Discovery is in the process of splitting into two separate companies, à la NBCUniversal/Versant and (to a lesser extent) Lionsgate/Starz. Zaslav said on Wednesday that he expects the process to wrap up in April 2026.
At that point, Zaslav will run “Warner Bros.,” which will consist of the Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC Studios, HBO and HBO Max, and the TCM cable channel, while his current (and longtime) CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels will run “Discovery,” a newly created company comprising the former Discovery and Turner linear channels, including TNT, TBS, CNN, Cartoon Network, Discovery, Food Network and HGTV. Discovery will also include the company’s international TV channels and the Discovery+ streaming service. Unfortunately, Wiedenfels gets the vast majority of WBD’s large debt load.
Zaslav formed Warner Bros. Discovery in April 2022 by combining his Discovery, Inc. with AT&T’s WarnerMedia.
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