His profile skyrocketed in 2021 after he announced a merger with Warner Media, putting him in charge of crown jewels like CNN, HBO and the Warner Bros. movie studio. The deal cemented Mr. Zaslav’s rise from the head of a small mid-Atlantic cable company to a media mogul overseeing both prestige film and TV productions and a pre-eminent news network.
Over the years, he has had his hands in the cable news business. He played a role in the formation of CNBC when he was an executive at NBC decades ago, helping expand distribution for the business news channel.
He has called CNN the “greatest journalistic organization on earth.”
Mr. Zaslav has described his vision to expand political viewpoints at CNN in heroic terms, likening it to the battle against tyranny in World War II. In a meeting with CNN staff in March, in which he defended Mr. Licht, Mr. Zaslav said CNN was headed toward a “rendezvous with destiny,” adding that it would not become “an advocacy network” for any political viewpoint.
“I am so proud that we have a chance every day at CNN to be a real purveyor of facts and truth in journalism, and to be a place that people can go to have a national and global conversation about what’s going on in the world,” Mr. Zaslav said, according to a recording of his remarks.
Mr. Zaslav has a close relationship with John Malone, the cable news magnate who is an influential shareholder of Warner Bros. Discovery. In an interview last year, Mr. Malone cited the Fox News host Bret Baier as a reliably centrist newscaster and said he was open to “wacko” opinion programming from the political left and right, provided that those shows were clearly labeled opinion programming.
A loyal circle of confidants has worked with Mr. Zaslav for years: David Leavy, CNN’s chief operations officer; Adria Alpert Romm, the chief people and culture officer; Bruce Campbell, the chief revenue and strategy officer; and Jean-Briac Perrette, the president and chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery global streaming and games division.
Though CNN generates only about 5 percent of the overall revenue of Warner Bros. Discovery, it has accounted for an overwhelming number of the headlines written about the company in recent months.
Source: New York Times
