During advertising upfronts last week, Warner Bros. Discovery was conspicuously absent of star power, choosing not to use any of its talent to show solidarity with the ongoing writer’s strike. Many questioned why CEO David Zaslav wasn’t in appearance, but we now have answers to those questions.
In an interview with AdWeek, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief U.S. Advertising Sales Officer Jon Steinlauf said the decision to not have Zaslav present was his own.
“David made the decision. I don’t think it was strike-related. I don’t think he chose not to go up on stage because of the strike. I think he chose not to go up on stage because he has done it for a long time. And he’s been CEO of Discovery since 2007,” said Steinlauf. “I think he wanted to cede that role to other executives in the company, as have a lot of his peers.
“When you think about CEOs of these companies, it’s really Brian Roberts; it’s Bob Iger; it’s David Zaslav. He looks at what the role is of the people that he considers to be his peers to him. If they’re letting their executives get the exposure, we had (WBD CRO) Bruce Campbell on stage. You have to pick and choose who are the best executives that you want the audience to become more familiar with as time goes by.
“There were some articles about we could have used David on stage because he’s a celebrity CEO to compensate for the lack of star power up on that stage. But he was there. He’s not trying to say the ad business is not as important to us as it as it used to be.”
Zaslav made an appearance later in the week at the MoffettNathanson conference where he discussed the future of CNN, noting that both sides of every issue will be featured on the “new” CNN. The new strategy is in hopes of returning the cable channel to its roots as a news gathering and reporting outlet instead of the “advocacy network” Zaslav said advertisers no longer want to be involved with.
