WARNER BROS CEO "It's Show Business NOT Show Friends" David Zaslav Takes On WOKE Hollywood!

David Zaslav is not making any friends in Hollywood. For decades, industry people relied on Warner Bros to play by their set of rules and throw unlimited amounts of money around to do their projects. It's not going to happen anymore. Whether a project is too woke, or it doesn't make financial sense, Zaslav is making it clear money will not be wasted anymore just to keep "friends" or relationships good, example, there will never be another Clint Eastwood obvious money-loser project like Cry Macho at Warner Brothers. We also look at other major challenges to Warner Brothers Discovery's business.

PLAYLIST 31 VIDEOS: WARNER BROTHERS DISCOVERY & DAVID ZASLAV
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUPkiRW84R1gxDL-u2P1Ac4bE5bONlHix

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav faces 3 key challenges as financial headwinds disrupt his strategy and threaten his promises to Wall Street
https://archive.ph/xdUqT

Comcast's Solid Dividend Payout Supported By Free Cash Flow But Threatened By Debt
https://archive.ph/WTxUj

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WARNER BROTHERS DISCOVERY recent quarterly financial report
https://s201.q4cdn.com/336605034/files/doc_financials/2022/q2/WBD-2022.6.30-10Q-Filed-copy.pdf

Warner Bros. Discovery faces huge integration issues while building its streaming Super App for summer 2023.
AT&T's rosy accounting led CEO David Zaslav to demand a big working capital adjustment in the merger.
Core cable assets are still the profit engine but Zaslav is currently dealing with Hollywood challenges.
When former Discovery CEO David Zaslav took over leadership of WarnerMedia in May, the box of TV and Hollywood crown jewels he inherited came with some ugly surprises.
For one, Warners' former owner, AT&T, had made such rosy projections about the business that Zaslav demanded a $1.2 billion working capital adjustment just before negotiations ended, according to one person closely familiar with the conversations. Zaslav was so adamant that AT&T CEO John Stankey give him a better accounting treatment in Discovery's acquisition of WarnerMedia that he threatened to walk away from the deal, according to this person.
Once the new management team at Warner Bros. Discovery got under the hood, they reduced the company's pre-tax profit projections, dropping EBITDA guidance for 2023 from $14 billion to $12 billion-plus.
A looming recession, rising debt costs, inflation, a declining ad market, increased competition, and the view on Wall Street that North American subscriber growth at Netflix has hit a wall are all making the gargantuan task of managing WBD even harder. New management find themselves with significantly less financial wiggle room than in April when the deal closed.
Investors, along with employees close to retirement, are taking a deep breath. On April 1, WBD ticker's first day of trading, the stock closed at $24.62; on Wednesday it closed at $12.22 (the S&P, meanwhile, had its worst first half in more than 50 years).
As the company works out how to wring $3 billion in synergies from its units, management has axed most of HBO Max's non-scripted division and TBS/TNT's scripted teams and there are questions about how the company will handle CNN's original documentaries and series led by Amy Entelis.
MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman crystallized the daunting task ahead for Zaslav and WBD in his August 5 report "Reality First. Dreams Second?" Noting the risk of a steeper decline in cable revenues before streaming can hit profitability in 2025, Fishman wrote, "We remain focused on how WBD will prioritize investing in DTC without hurting its linear networks portfolio, especially as it relates to its sports rights — most importantly the NBA — going forward?"
"The consensus in Hollywood is that everybody seems to think that they're in over their heads. The honeymoon was short-lived," said one senior Hollywood insider. "Fundamentally there are two ways out of the problem. Make hits with great taste, the other is to cut everything."

Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels are looking out to 2023, when company layoffs will be largely finished — around 100 ad sales and support staff were laid off last week — and the planned combination of HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single "super app" can come to fruition.
But before things get better, Zaslav and his team have a host of difficult tasks ahead.
Layoffs, leadership moves, and questions about a future sale
When the deal closed, Zaslav and the team thought they'd be integrating two companies. It turns out there are five, housing some 40,000 employees globally: Warner Bros., HBO Max, the Turner entertainment channel business, CNN, and Discovery.