David Zaslav, who is famously gregarious and high-energy, has been oddly quiet lately with an absence of media interviews or social events on his schedule. Even his regular booth at the Polo Lounge has been somnolent.
03.02.2022 - 02:39 / variety.com
Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterDiscovery CEO David Zaslav just added another big item to his long to-do list in preparation for the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger: Find a strong replacement for CNN chief Jeff Zucker.Zucker shocked the industry by stepping down from WarnerMedia, where he was CNN president and chairman of news and sports for WarnerMedia, after an investigation into the conduct of now-fired CNN anchor Chris Cuomo revealed that Zucker had not disclosed that he had a consensual romantic relationship with a colleague. The colleague who went unnamed in Zucker’s resignation memo to staff is Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer and a longtime Zucker lieutenant going back to their respective tenures at NBC.
Sorting through plans for leadership ahead of AT&T’s $43 billion spinoff of WarnerMedia to Discovery, which is expected to close in the second quarter, is already a huge challenge for a deal of this size. But Zucker’s abrupt resignation leaves Zaslav, who will be CEO of the newly minted Warner Bros.
Discovery, with an immediate problem at a time when the deal is in regulatory review limbo. Morever, CNN is one of WarnerMedia’s most important asset and a huge driver of bottom-line earnings for its parent company.
CNN is also in the midst of preparing for the launch this quarter of its CNN Plus streaming platform. Zucker has been busy in recent months recruiting talent and shaping programming plans for the streamer.“I think the expectation from everybody, inside both Warner and Discovery, was that Jeff would stick around, at least for the first portion post-merger,” a source close to the situation told Variety.
“The merger still has to be approved, obviously. But in the event that it does — and as of
.David Zaslav, who is famously gregarious and high-energy, has been oddly quiet lately with an absence of media interviews or social events on his schedule. Even his regular booth at the Polo Lounge has been somnolent.
investigation into circumstances surrounding the firing of anchor Chris Cuomo and ouster of network chief Jeff Zucker. But for a news organization, it has chosen to leave questions unanswered.The internal report, commissioned in September and prepared by the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, will not be made public, WarnerMedia said on Wednesday.WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar told CNN employees late Tuesday that the report had been finished over the weekend.
UPDATE 2/15/2022: Allison Gollust is stepping down from her position as Chief Marketing Officer for CNN, the network announced on Feb. 15. Jason Kilar, the CEO of the network’s parent company WarnerMedia, made the announcement of Allison’s resignation in a memo to the staff.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAllison Gollust, the chief marketing officer at CNN, has resigned from the network following a WarnerMedia investigation into “issues associated with Chris Cuomo and former Governor Andrew Cuomo,” according to a memo from Jason Kilar, the company’s CEO.“Performed by a third-party law firm and led by a former federal judge, the investigation was comprehensive and definitive. It was commissioned in September and concluded this weekend, which now allows me to share additional information with you,” Kilar said.
Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDiscovery investors will be asked to approve the $43 billion deal to combine with WarnerMedia, which AT&T is spinning off, at a March 11 virtual meeting.Discovery announced the date in a letter to shareholders, which it disclosed in an SEC filing Thursday. On that same day, AT&T has scheduled a virtual investor conference where the company said it will provide “additional insight and expectations for financial and operational performance of AT&T’s Communications segment” following the close of the WarnerMedia transaction.The pact cleared a major hurdle this week after U.S.
Discovery has set March 11 as the date of a special shareholder meeting to hold a vote on the company’s proposed merger with AT&T’s WarnerMedia.
Claudia Eller Co-Editor-in-ChiefHow could Jeff Zucker let himself self-destruct like that?It’s now been reported extensively just how many of his loyalists at CNN are outraged that WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar abruptly forced the charismatic leader out of his post last week for failing to disclose a romantic relationship with his “closest colleague,” chief marketing officer Allison Gollust. After all, his supporters argue, this was a consensual relationship between two single adults, so therefore what was the actual harm? True enough, but unfortunately the harm done was done by Zucker himself, and it ultimately led to his undoing at CNN when an enemy seized an opportunity to bring him down over it.
Chris Cuomo is reportedly seeking more money from CNN than what’s left on his contract.
Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterKorean zombie thriller “All Of Us Are Dead” has become Netflix’s fifth most popular non-English-language series debut, Variety has learned exclusively.On Tuesday, “All of Us Are Dead” debuted on Netflix’s all-time rankings, which tracks the streaming service’s Top 10 most popular non-English TV series based on hours viewed in their first 28 days on Netflix, in the fifth-place slot. Its entrance bumps “The Queen of Flow,” which was previously at 10th, off the list.At No. 1 on the list is still, of course, the Korean mega-hit “Squid Game,” which racked up 1.65 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days post-launch.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorEver since Jeff Zucker seized the reins at CNN in early 2013, the cable-news network has been one of loudest voices in media circles. Now, even though Discovery didn’t push the executive out, there’s a sense the company will, after it buys CNN along with the rest of WarnerMedia, look to turn down the volume.In the Zucker era, CNN became more swashbuckling, more colorful, and indeed, more opinionated than it ever was under the aegis of its founder Ted Turner, or his successors at the former Time Warner. CNN went from delivering headlines to being in the headlines.
Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, will host a weekly show for CNN+, the network’s upcoming subscription streaming service.
Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterSPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched “Child Care,” Monday’s episode of “9-1-1: Lone Star.”Baby made three for Judd (Jim Parrack) and Grace (Sierra McClain) on last week’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” — and on Monday’s episode, an estranged teen son and his mother made five. Totally unbeknownst to Judd and Grace, he had a son Wyatt (Jackson Pace) with Marlene Harris (Robyn Lively), a barrel racer he can hardly remember having met at the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo in 2005.On Monday’s “9-1-1: Lone Star,” that boy comes to find Judd with the help of an online DNA ancestry website and Judd and Grace, just getting the hang of taking care of newborn daughter Charlie following her birth at the tail end of the Fox drama’s weeks-long ice-storm plot.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs CNN’s many journalists tried to get past the ouster of Jeff Zucker, they ran up against one of their biggest professional hurdles: a source who refuses to talk.Some of WarnerMedia’s best-known on-air personalities pressed the company’s CEO Jason Kilar again and again on Monday, asking him to divulge more details around why Zucker resigned after acknowledging a personal relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer. But Kilar would not.The WarnerMedia chief faced questions from Don Lemon, Alisyn Camerota, Brian Stelter, Jim Sciutto, Bill Weir, Richard Quest, John Avlon and Victor Blackwell, as well as longtime producer Jim Murphy, many of them pressing him for more information about whether the parent company felt Zucker was given a harsher punishment than was necessary; about whether WarnerMedia was negotiating with Chris Cuomo, fired by Zucker last year, over severance; and whether the looming merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery forced his hand when it came to deciding what to do about the now former CNN chief.
CNN anchor Don Lemon offered an emotional tribute to former boss Jeff Zucker to open his Friday show.
AT&T CEO John Stankey and Discovery CEO David Zaslav generally sidestepped questions about the exit of CNN boss Jeff Zucker amid dismay among the cable network’s on air talent and staffers over how the situation was handled.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorCNN staffers who spend a lot of time delivering the latest headlines may have something else to give their corporate overseers: a raised middle finger.Executives who run companies like WarnerMedia and Discovery spend much of their time these days trying to keep investors enthused about their prospects, even as the consumers who watch their movies and TV shows keep moving away to new streaming venues. Now they may have to take up some of their hours soothing a roiled staff at CNN, where many employees remain furious about the ouster of Jeff Zucker, the company’s president for the past nine years.
Katie Couric is commenting on now-former CNN president Jeff Zucker resigning from his position at the network on Wednesday, after he failed to disclose a consensual relationship with chief marketing officer Allison Gollust.Couric worked under Zucker when he was executive producer of the show on NBC in the early 2000s, as well as on her 2012 daytime talk show,, which ended in 2014. Gollust had also previously worked as 's senior publicist.
Katie Couric is speaking out after her former producer, Jeff Zucker, resigned as the president of CNN Worldwide. Zucker, who held the position for nine years, announced he was stepping down on Wednesday (January 2) for not disclosing his relationship with CNN colleague, Allison Gollust. The next day, Couric shared a statement through Katie Couric Media, saying many in the industry “turned a blind eye to inappropriate behavior” between the Zucker and Gollust.
Katie Couric is speaking about Jeff Zucker’s resignation as president of CNN Worldwide.
NEW YORK -- CNN President Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned Wednesday after acknowledging a consensual relationship with another network executive — an entanglement that came to light during an investigation of now-fired anchor Chris Cuomo.Zucker said he was asked about his relationship with longtime aide Allison Gollust as part of the Cuomo investigation, which revealed that the former anchor had aided his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as he navigated a sexual harassment scandal.“I acknowledged the relationship had evolved in recent years,” Zucker wrote in a memo announcing the end of his nine-year tenure.