David Zaslav Likes to Gut Cable Networks. CNN Isn’t Easily Remodeled

https://t.co/NFEejQDyvcBohrman was the creator of the “Magic Wall,” now a staple of CNN’s election night coverage. He was also behind the creation of shows like “State of the Union” and “The Situation Room,” and produced many of the network’s presidential debates.Before CNN, Bohrman was part of the original “Nightline” staff at ABC News, where he created “World News Now”; he also worked at NBC News in the 1990s, and served as president of Al Gore’s Current TV.TV news institution David Bohrman died today.

fired from the news network, saying he doesn’t “have to be in a rush” to return to TV.Speaking to ABC’s Memphis affiliate ABC24, Lemon said that he is going to take his time to figure what his future holds and spent the next several months away from the cameras.“I’m not gonna force anything,” Lemon said. “I’m not gonna let other people’s timeline influence me. I know people say, ‘I miss you on television.

Variety, in wake of the exit of network head Pola Changnon this week. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had been considering bringing in De Luca and Abdy for some time, insiders said, to rely on their cinephile instincts and shape the best possible programming slate for the channel — one beloved by Hollywood titans and film fans for its showcase of film history. TCM will still exist with the US Networks Group run by Kathleen Finch. While De Luca and Abdy will advise, a senior executive in charge of operations is expected to be named in the future. Warner Bros. Discovery had no comment on the matter.

Earlier this week, Warner Bros. Discovery laid off several execs at Turner Classic Movies, leading many to conclude that the channel’s future may be in crisis.

Angelique Jackson After Warner Bros. Discovery announced layoffs at Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on Tuesday, filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson conferred with WBD chief David Zaslav about the future of the cinema network. Variety has learned that the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO convened a call with the trio of top filmmakers on Wednesday for guidance following the departure of top TCM execs, including general manager Pola Changnon, who stepped down after more than 25 years with the network and Turner. Spielberg, Scorsese and Anderson are key parties of the Film Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of classic cinema. The Film Foundation was founded in 1990 by Scorsese, with Spielberg serving on its original board of directors and Anderson joining in 2006. In 2022, TCM expanded its partnership with the nonprofit, announcing a multi-year financial commitment to fund education and restoration of classic movies. The expansion was commemorated at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, where Spielberg made a special appearance to debut a 4K restoration of the Warner Bros.’ classic “Giant.” In April, Spielberg, Anderson and Zaslav also sat for a Q&A at the festival following a special screening of the 4K restoration of “Rio Bravo,” moderated by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

Filmmaking titans Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson will convene with Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav today for an “emergency call” concerning the future of Turner Classic Movies following a recently announced set of layoffs at the beloved pay-TV network, according to a report from Deadline’s sister site Indiewire.

The Los Angeles Times that he keeps TCM on one of the screens in his editing suite while he’s working.“It gives me something to turn to, to bounce off of, to rest in, to reinvigorate my thinking — just glancing at some image or combination of images at a certain moment,” he told the outlet. “It’s more like a presence in the room, a reminder of film history as a living, ongoing entity.”“I fear for the future of TCM,” he added at the time. “So does everyone else I know who loves movies.”Zaslav himself touted the network when joined Spielberg and Anderson at the 14th TCM Classic Film Festival in April.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Some of the food and drink served in the next season of the frenzied family restaurant comedy “The Bear” may just be a lot easier to recognize. After getting queries from more than 40 different advertisers after the program’s first season on Hulu, Disney has come up with ways to mix Madison Avenue more closely into the recipe of the program. Viewers are likely to see Stella Atrois, Coca-Cola and American Express’ Resy online-reservations service develop a closer relationship to the series, with products showing up in scenes and customized promotional content placed alongside the program. The goal, says John Campbell, Disney Advertising’s senior vice president of entertainment and addressable solutions, is to “allow brands and clients to get closer to the intellectual property, closer to the talent.”

Billy Ray is back for the sixth installment of Strike Talk, a podcast that began with the start of the Writers Guild standoff. Falling on the 50th day of the strike, this episode is groundbreaking, in a Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL meets James Cameron’s The Terminator kind of way. As he will explain in the podcast, Ray was able to make it so that he could have a back and forth verbal conversation with the AI that is a major bone of contention for the WGA in its dispute with AMPTP signatories. While the voice of AI seems amiable enough, it makes clear that as its technology and learning abilities become more sophisticated, fears that it could be used to lessen the number of writers coming up in the creative ecosystem by the use of cost-effective technology is validated in technicolor. Below-the-liners, writers and actors and even studio heads are expendable. Ray, who wrote the classic ‘I am the captain now’ line in Captain Phillips, unveils a new and potentially scarier skipper here, one that might give studio chiefs pause to consider what they’re unleashing to save a few bucks. Click below to listen.

Chris Licht’s ouster as CEO at CNN, Joe Scarborough argued that Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav should have kept Licht on for the full term of his two-year-contract. “Zaslav gave Chris two years; I wish Chris had been given the two years Zaslav promised him,” Scarborough told The New York Times.

post-exit statement, which called his tenure “exciting but incredibly challenging.”“This was an exciting but incredibly challenging assignment, and I learned a lot over the past 13 months,” Licht said in a statement to media.

the ousting of his handpicked CNN CEO Chris Licht in an internal memo to employees on Wednesday.“I have known Chris for many years and have enormous respect for him, personally and professionally. This job was never going to be easy, especially at a time of great disruption and transformation, and Chris poured his heart and soul into it,” Zaslav wrote.

“We are sending a message that our content doesn’t have to cost a fortune to watch,” said the CEO of fledgling streamer SkyShowtime, who backed David Zaslav’s recent suggestion that rival streamers should bundle together.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN chief Chris Licht told staffers Monday he wants to help them make the news rather than being a central figure in it. In the wake of a devastating profile of the CNN CEO published Friday by The Atlantic, Licht set about soothing frayed nerves Monday by telling employees on the news outlet’s regular morning call that “I should not be in the news unless it’s taking arrows for you. Your work is what should be written about,” according to two people familiar with the matter, The words are the first from Licht to be made public since the piece was unveiled. Thanks to a rich vein of unfettered access provided over months, the piece detailed the executive’s struggles — and some of his insecurities — during his first year on the job at the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed news outlet. David Zaslav, the CEO of the parent company, has articulated a strategy of eliminating some of the activist bent that resounded at CNN under its previous chief, Jeff Zucker. But Licht’s efforts to do so have been plagued by near-constant leaks and a restive staff, many of whom remain loyal to Licht’s predecessor, ousted after he admitted to a longstanding relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s former chief marketing officer.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor CNN will shift the bulk of its operations behind its Spanish-language efforts to Mexico City, scaling back production of content for linear television in favor of work aimed at reaching a younger audience that favors mobile video. The move is likely to mean the elimination of jobs in Miami and Atlanta, but will also result in a ramp-up of jobs in Mexico and Los Angeles, where CNN will aim to add more than staffers, according to a person familiar with the plans, which were disclosed to employees Thursday afternoon. CNN CEO Chris Licht had nodded to the future of the Spanish-language network in November at a town-hall meeting. At issue is how to maintain outreach to Spanish-speaking viewers at a time when the economics of big media companies are under intense scrutiny. CNN and its corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, have already cut operations, but the question of how to keep CNN en Espanol under such conditions has been under debate for some time. In the past, discussions had been underway to shut down the cable network, which has only limited distribution of around nine million in the United States.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film Writer The upper deck at France’s Hotel Du-Cap-Eden-Roc offers a stunning coastal view of nearby city Cannes, the kind that Jay Gatsby would covet to peep Daisy Buchanan. On Tuesday, at one of the hottest parties at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, that view belonged to Graydon Carter. Standing alone with a female companion, the creator of the digital publication Air Mail and iconic former editor of Vanity Fair observed not a long-lost love but a cliffside full of movie stars, auteur directors and Hollywood power players. Carter’s Air Mail co-hosted an evening celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Warner Bros. Pictures, the latter represented by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and his top content lieutenants. Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Lily-Rose Depp, Sam Levinson, Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Rebel Wilson and more turned up to toast cinema and each other.

John le Carre’s George Smiley would have spotted the tail immediately. He would have noticed the man with an earpiece far to his left move in lockstep with the chap to his right.

wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. The request to ban “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country,” which includes Gorman’s now-famous spoken word “The Hill We Climb” that she recited at the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden was made in March, per a complaint Gorman also posted on Twitter. In the ban request the complainant claimed “The Hill We Climb” contains content that is “not educational,” and that it is “indirectly hate messages.” They also stated that the subject matter is “not for schools” and it can “cause confusion” and “indoctrinates students.” On the document, the complainant stated that Oprah Winfrey was the “author/publisher” of the book though the poem was written by Gorman. “Book bans aren’t new. But they have been on the rise—according to the ALA, 40% more books were challenged in 2022 compared to 2021,” Gorman continued.

Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg have reunited to revive “The Color Purple” into a movie musical. After debuting footage for distributors at CinemaCon last month, Warner Bros. has released the first trailer of the new adaptation, directed by Blitz Bazawule and set to premiere in North America on Dec.