Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav Vows Not to Overspend to Compete in Streaming Wars

The CEO of the nation’s third-largest entertainment player said he plans to avoid the pressure of meeting the spending of rival streamers

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav (Getty Images)
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav (Getty Images)

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav said he doesn’t plan on getting into a streaming arms race as Hollywood’s big entertainment companies bolster their platforms to woo analysts.

“I know we have the resources but we can plan on being careful and judicious,” he said during the company’s conference with analysts after the Q1 earnings were released.

“As you’ve heard me say, we are not trying to win the direct-to-consumer spending war,” the WBD chief said, instead promising that the newly combined WarnerMedia-Discovery company would “invest in scale smartly.”

He already made the first difficult choice within the first week after Discovery closed its $43 billion acquisitor of the larger WarnerMedia: Zaslav, notorious in the industry for being a no-nonsense cost-cutter, decided to close down the much-hyped CNN+.

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