When David Zaslav Is Your Boss: 20-Plus Insiders on His Exacting Standards (And Those 6:30 a.m. Calls)

Lacey Rose, Kim Masters and Alex Weprin
·10 min read
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On June 7, at roughly 9 a.m. ET, the media parlor game shifted abruptly from how long CNN chief executive Chris Licht would remain in the job to who would replace him.

Licht, whose turbulent tenure lasted just 13 months, had met his demise after a blistering 15,000-word profile appeared in The Atlantic. His boss, David Zaslav, who was described in the piece as the only person who could (and regularly would) interrupt Licht’s early morning workouts with 6:30 a.m. calls, has installed an interim executive leadership team: David Leavy, Virginia Moseley, Eric Sherling and internal frontrunner Amy Entelis. Multiple sources, inside Warner Bros. Discovery and out, say Zaslav will run a formal search, something he didn’t do when he hired Licht, because he can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. All seem to agree the job is twofold: The new leader will need to not only manage a challenged news network heading into an election year — one where Donald Trump is again expected to play a prominent role — but also manage Zaslav, a boss who is both exacting and impatient.

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“And who wants to have to manage him?” says a source with close ties to CNN. “That’s not worth the millions of dollars a year.”

Of the 20-plus WBD insiders who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter for this article, a portrait emerges of the CEO’s management style: Zaslav knows that he needs to step back and let the new CNN leader lead, but whether he’s capable of doing so remains to be seen. “David is extremely hands-on, not like moving a camera, because that’s not his thing, but he calls, and it’s, ‘What’s next? What are you doing? What’s going on with this? What’s the status on that?’” says a former Zaslav exec. “And I’m saying it all fast because every conversation with David lasts no more than a couple of minutes, if that. You’ll be trying to explain something to him, and he’ll say, ‘Oh, you know, I gotta take this call. I’ll call you right back.’ Click! And then you never hear back.”

The tenor of his conversations with Licht are said to have grown increasingly intense as CNN ratings and morale kept plummeting. Licht, who’d relocated his office from the newsroom to a far-flung executive floor, had little interaction with many on his staff. In fact, one CNNer reveals they’d listen to earnings calls and Zaslav’s appearances at investor conferences to try to glean insights about what WBD’s strategy might be for CNN. Of course, at a Paley Center event this spring, Licht, who did not return THR’s requests for comment, shot back, “I’m the only one that knows [my intentionality].” Insiders say Zaslav became more and more frustrated with Licht’s inability to gain the team’s trust — by March, Zaslav had stepped in and hosted a CNN town hall to try to rally the troops — and the glacial pace at which Licht was tackling certain issues, including the 9 p.m. hour, which sat hostless for his entire run. (His pick, Kaitlan Collins, officially started right after he was ousted.) “In all fairness to David, I think he really started meddling when he realized, like, this guy’s not doing anything,” says a source.

By all accounts, Zaslav’s involvement varies by division and need. He’s given HBO honcho Casey Bloys, for instance, a considerably longer leash than he ever did Licht. Part of that, sources note, is that Bloys has had significant success — which, not incidentally, has given Zaslav bragging rights with his Hamptons cohorts — and Bloys has proved highly skilled at managing up. With his TV Studios boss Channing Dungey or film heads Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, Zaslav hosts weekly update meetings, then lobs calls to check in around major dealmaking or upcoming releases. “Not obsessively,” insists an insider. “Believe me, it’s not like Katzenberg.”

Zaslav has more to offer at CNN, having been a key figure in the creation of CNBC and a part of the team that launched MSNBC, than he does in Hollywood, after all. Still, leaders like De Luca praise his willingness to help them seal deals with major talent or woo theater owners, a marked change from the previous regime. In fact, De Luca singles out Zaslav’s appearance at CinemaCon in April, telling THR, “He talks about being a kid from Brooklyn, growing up at the movies, and how there’s nothing like the experience of sharing a movie with an audience. And because he’s sincere about it, it moves people, emotionally, and that’s a big boon for us.”

When it came time to lock in uber-producer Greg Berlanti to a new pact on the TV side, Zaslav was also right there, on the phone with Berlanti’s CAA reps — though he left Dungey and team to hammer out the best deal. “He’s very involved, but what I love about David is he’s not in the weeds. He’s never once given me notes on a cut. That’s not who he is,” Dungey said in an interview earlier this year. “He likes to know what are the challenges, what are the things keeping you up at night, and how can he help, that’s kind of how every one-on-one starts with him.”

The executive who seems to garner significantly more airtime than Zaslav in the creative divisions is Warner Bros. Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, a long-tenured member of the chief’s inner circle. “If Gunnar’s calling, it’s like, ‘Well, we’re fucked,’ ” says a Max exec, one of many who bemoans the cost-cutting demands that come down from Wiedenfels. They’re said to range from production budgets to parties and perks. Another exec there adds: “Zaslav largely leaves Casey alone, but then he has Gunnar digging for nickels in his couch.” It’s among the reasons some of Zaslav’s moves, notably the Robert De Niro gangster film Wise Guys he pushed through from buddies Barry Levinson, Nicholas Pileggi and Irwin Winkler or the lavish party he threw at Cannes with Graydon Carter, have landed so poorly internally. (For what it’s worth, De Luca says he and Abdy chose to move forward with film because they believe in the value of an eclectic slate and the potential for a great gangster movie at the studio that invented the genre.)

“David wanted to do an Oscar party this year, but I thought we should give it a breather for the time being. But then I said, ‘Why don’t we throw a party during the Cannes Film Festival?’ He jumped on it,” says Carter, another Zaslav pal who’s been tapped to redesign the WBD commissary with the help of architect Basil Walter. One insider insists the party was an important flag-planting, like, “We’re in the movie business in a major way,” but others at WBD say Zaslav was told the bash was a bad look. A few even suggest there were efforts made to curb the optics, with Wiedenfels ultimately disinviting execs from the trip. The party went on, however, with Zaslav joined by guests like Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Scarlett Johansson, all as writers circled his L.A. office with picket signs.

“He’s always coveted this mogul life, and now he’s got it,” says an executive who has known Zaslav for decades. A classic-movie buff, he works from Jack L. Warner’s old desk, which he had pulled out of storage, and moved with his wife into Bob Evans’ former Beverly Hills mansion. For his most recent birthday, a who’s who of Hollywood, including Larry David, Robert Downey Jr. and Kevin Costner, turned up to celebrate at Mr Chow. This source adds, “Some part of him probably knows it’s temporary, so he’s like, ‘Screw it, let them eat cake.’”

Zaslav surrounding himself with boldfaced names is nothing new — consider the guest list at his once-annual Labor Day party — nor is his willingness to make big, splashy and at times questionable deals to be in business with them. As Discovery veterans note, it can be a jarring juxtaposition for a man who garnered a reputation for grinding reality show budgets. “But if it’s something he wants, money’s no object,” says one of those vets, who rattles off examples of what some have dubbed “DZ specials.” Among them: his insistence that Discovery invest in Dana White’s Power Slap league at the urging of Ari Emanuel and Craig Piligian. “Nobody wanted it — and, by the way, we knew we were going to get grief for canceling shows in order to put on people slapping each other, but David wanted it, so we did it,” says a former Zaslav exec.

Other DZ specials, which sources say are often influenced by the tastes or talking points of his Hamptons dinner companions, have included the company shelling out several million to do a SmartLess tour docuseries with Jason Bateman and Will Arnett or a six-part Steven Spielberg doc about the origins and dangers of hate. At one point, Zaslav was even willing to pony up $100 million to get into business with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, says an insider, though the duo chose Netflix over Discovery as its home.

“The thing that people learn, and Chris Licht probably learned this too late, is that you do not slow-roll David when he wants you to do something,” notes an exec who’s well versed in Zaslav’s exacting standards. “You hope, ‘Well, maybe David forgot about it,’ because he’s always running to the next shiny object, but that’s the thing: David doesn’t forget.”

June 22, 6:15 a.m., this story was updated to include De Luca noting that he and Abdy chose to move forward with Wise Guys.

Who Could Run CNN Next?

anthropomorphized CNN logo wearing a crown and waving a scepter
anthropomorphized CNN logo wearing a crown and waving a scepter

A few internal candidates and a couple of wild cards to watch

Amy Entelis
CNN’s head of talent and content development would be a stabilizing force and a familiar leader for anchors and correspondents after the larger chaos of the AT&T and Discovery mergers. Entelis, who is one of the interim leaders for CNN since Chris Licht’s exit, also served as an interim leader after Jeff Zucker’s departure last year.

David Leavy
The longtime lieutenant and confidant of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is now CNN’s COO and brings an operational background to the interim team. A veteran of the Clinton White House (he was chief spokesperson for the National Security Council), Leavy is based out of D.C., a critical bureau for CNN as the 2024 election gets underway.

Virginia Moseley
The executive oversees CNN’s editorial departments, which include its wide-reaching breaking news and newsgathering capabilities. The veteran of ABC News joined CNN in 2012 as an executive in its D.C. bureau and continues to oversee CNN’s coverage of the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and other areas; she also is on the interim leadership team.

David Rhodes
The former top news executive at Bloomberg, Fox News and News Corp. also served as the president of CBS News from 2011 to 2019. Currently an executive at Sky (Comcast’s U.K. division), Rhodes would bring the operational experience atop a TV news network that is lacking in many other external candidates.

Eric Sherling
As head of programming for CNN, Sherling oversaw arguably one of the most successful new launches of the Licht era: the daytime “CNN News Central” revamp. A veteran producer (he helped launch The Lead With Jake Tapper), Sherling is a known commodity for the New York, D.C. and Atlanta-based anchor teams and is on CNN’s interim leadership team.

Jay Sures
As vice chairman of UTA, and one of the most powerful agents in the news business, Sures already represents many top CNN anchors, including Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper. That relationship with talent could be a critical skill for whoever gets the top job at CNN, and his well-known interest and passion for the news business could translate.

This story first appeared in the June 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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