Warner Bros. Discovery, Grappling With Debt, Has Room for Bonuses For Executives Who Can Reduce Some

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Rob King, a senior executive at Walt Disney’s ESPN who had oversight of much of the company’s sports journalism, has abruptly left the Disney-backed sports-media giant. “After nearly 20 years with ESPN, I have decided the time is right for me to leave the company,: King said on Twitter on Tuesday “I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family and friends, and wish the company continued success.” The New York Post reported Tuesday that King departed after complaints were made to ESPN about harassing social-media posts. An ESPN spokesperson said the company would not comment on personnel matters.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Warner Bros. Discovery is giving a league of would-be providers of TV-audience measurement its own appraisal. After tapping Comscore, iSpot.TV and VideoAmp last year to help build a new suite of technologies that will help count viewers across linear, digital and connected television, the big entertainment company is paring down its provider list. Comscore and VideoAmp will serve as partners during Warner Bros. Discovery’s efforts during the industry’s next “upfront” sales session. “Our methodology was quite rigorous,” says Andrea Zapata, the company’s executive vice president and head of ad sales research, measurement and insights, in an interview.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery received stock upgrades from two media analyst firms Friday for, among other things, making the decision to tie bonuses for CEO David Zaslav and his team to free cash flow performance. “We threw everything and the kitchen sink at a Downside Case scenario for WBD, and it still delevers to 3x by ’25E,” Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a research note published Friday, in which they upgraded WBD’s stock to “overweight” with a price target increase from $13 to $20 per share. “We now have conviction in FCF to limit downside, while the stock has asymmetric upside.” Meanwhile, Wolfe Research moved WBD from its “peer perform” rating to “outperform” and also upped the price target to $20. (At time of publication Friday, WBD stock was trading at $14.51 per share.)

The “Evil Dead” series continues with “Evil Dead Rise,” fresh off its world premiere at SXSW in Austin earlier this week. The Playlist’s critic didn’t like Lee Cronin‘s new installment (read our review here), but others elsewhere have, which bodes well for the film’s theatrical release next month.

series of layoffs and reshuffled top executives last year, and in the fourth quarter of 2022 it booked $3.05 billion in charges related to the merger.“Last year was a year of restructuring, 2023 will be a year of building. And off we go,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told analysts on the company’s earnings call.

A24, the scrappy indie studio that has built a brand for itself as a home for hip and cutting-edge movies, triumphed over its deeper-pocketed rivals at the Oscars on Sunday. It scored a leading nine wins, topping that of its closest competitor, Netflix, which had to settle for six trophies. Plus, A24 not only captured best picture for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” but also pulled off the incredibly rare feat of winning every major acting category, with three statuettes coming for the cast of the head-spinning adventure film and the other one recognizing Brendan Fraser’s work in “The Whale.” But don’t expect the studio to do a victory lap. Co-founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz (who named their shop after the highway that connects Rome to Teramo) shun the spotlight and have done almost no interviews or profiles, though they have certainly been asked. Rather, the indie moguls say they prefer to let their films speak for themselves — an anomaly in Hollywood, where executives usually push one another aside to claim credit for successes.

“I have no breaking story about a Veep comeback,” Matt Walsh told us at Deadline’s SXSW studio, “I wish I did because it would blow up the internet.”

Bloomberg reported on Thursday and TheWrap independently confirmed.The name change is meant to signal that the service will not just be HBO Max with Discovery content, nor will HBO Max be ported over to Discovery+. “Max” is the leading contender, though Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Discovery has tweaked its CEO’s employment contract, granting a bigger pot of restricted stock units but linking them to free cash flow targets.

With today’s “urgent reminder” directed to its membership, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences again is doing its damnedest to get out the vote. The Oscar event is still a battlefield of “gold, sweat and tears” as portrayed in Oscar Wars, Michael Schulman’s new book, despite the ominous industry challenges.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor David Westin, the Bloomberg TV anchor, will focus more intently on duties tied to “Wall Street Week” as the network focuses more intently on breaking-news coverage throughout the market day. Westin will host the weekly show, which has ties to the PBS original hosted by Louis Rukeyser, while anchoring daily “Wall Street Week” segments tied to the program. The daily segments will feature a rotating panel of influential voices and thought leaders. He will leave his duties on “Balance of Power,” which will shift to 5 p.m. weekdays rather than noon, and move to Washington, D.C. from New York. “Balance” will be co-anchored by Annemarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu. Executives expect the retooled show to include more original reporting and roundtable discussions.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor ESPN is getting in on the biggest game at corporate parent Disney: shuffling top executive ranks in the wake of the return of CEO Bob Iger. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro handed oversight of content and newsgathering to Burke Magnus, a veteran executive who has helped the sports-media giant strike sports-rights deals with most of the major sports leagues as well as set in motion new content initiatives. Magnus has been named president of content, according to a new memo from Pitaro reviewed by Variety, and will supervise studio shows, live events, newsgathering, investigative journalism, original content/ESPN Films, talent, audio, digital, and social media. Meanwhile, Rosalyn Durant, a Disney veteran who has been overseeing Disney facilities in its parks division, will return to ESPN as executive vice president of programming and acquisitions, the ESPN position that negotiates for the rights that keep a significant chunk of live sports on Disney’s media portfolio.

Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke feels about Warner Bros. making competing projects based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” Salke, who has held the top content job at Amazon since 2018, walked a Monday red carpet for the premiere of Michael B. Jordan’s “Creed III” where she spoke with Variety about last week’s news that Warner Bros. had secured film rights to some of Tolkien’s books. One of Salke’s defining moves at Amazon was to secure television rights to the same literary works, which she achieved at great expense. The first season of Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” premiered in 2022 with a big global marketing push and critical acclaim — as well as a reported budget north of $450 million for the first batch of episodes. Previously, Warner Bros. pushed out two massively successful film franchises with auteur Peter Jackson beginning in 2001. Those films grossed over $5 billion at the worldwide box office and brought home a best picture Oscar for one of the entries.

Seven months after landing the highly coveted top jobs at Warner Bros. Motion Picture studios, Co-Chairpersons Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy were bestowed with the PGA Milestone award tonight and paid respect for their mega industry mentors, remembered emotionally their cinematic NYC and New Jersey youths, and gave a huge shoutout to their new boss, Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Middle Earth is returning to the big screen.

The obvious question in David Zaslav’s reveal today that Warner Bros/New Line intend to to head back into Middle-earth with rights owner Embracer and expand the Lord of the Rings franchise is this: What do the Kiwi creatives who architected the Oscar-winning, billion-dollar-grossing franchise feel about the whole thing?

The motivation for continuing to offer Discovery+ as a stand-alone streaming service after a combined offering with HBO Max debuts later this spring, is largely financial, Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav says.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor David Zaslav sounds tired of taking lumps. After months of cost cutting, write-downs, and getting pilloried among Hollywood natives for killing projects, the Warner Bros. Discovery chief showed off some new truculence, making the case that while his newly-merged company has been having a tough time, so too were others. “‘Last year was a year of restructuring,” said Zaslav, during a call with investors Thursday. “This year will be a year of building.” Over the course of an hour, Zasalv and Gunnar Wiedenfels, Warner’s chief financial officer, made the case that their company was just as well-equipped as any of its rivals — perhaps even more so — to withstand a stormy era during which media companies are pressed to grow their streaming operations but maintain profitability. Zaslav elbowed Netflix for releasing all of the episodes for a program’s cycle all at once; suggested that a move to launch new “Lord of the Rings” movies would take away some of the momentum that Amazon had enjoyed from its launch of a series based on the novels; and told listeners Warner Bros. Discovery could launch an ad-supported streaming service without having to buy an outside asset, as Fox Corp. and Paramount Global had. “We can create a Tubi or a Pluto without having to buy anybody,” he boasted.

Call “2023 will be a year of building,” Warner Bros Discovery boss David Zaslav made a point today on the company’s latest earnings call to sing the praises of CNN’s “more inclusive range of voices and viewpoints.”

Warner Bros Discovery revenue fell 11% to $11 billion (or a drop of 9% when foreign exchange fluctuations are excluded), mostly due to advertising softness and tough studio comparisons.