{"id":627661,"date":"2026-05-06T22:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627661\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T22:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:16:09","slug":"david-zaslav-on-ted-turner-during-wbd-earnings-call-generational-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627661\/","title":{"rendered":"David Zaslav On Ted Turner During WBD Earnings Call: “Generational Entrepreneur”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf you thought David Zaslav<\/a> had said all he had to say on the life and death of CNN<\/a> founder Ted Turner<\/a> today in his memo to Warner Bros Discovery staff earlier Wednesday,<\/a> think again.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTed was a generational entrepreneur, someone who believed deeply in the power of ideas and in telling stories and building platforms that could inform, connect and inspire people around the globe,\u201d the still WBD CEO declared at the top of the company\u2019s Q1 earnings call this afternoon. His global vision for our industry was way before its time and presently powerful.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen Zas made an odd shout out to his own mentor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAlongside Ted through much of that journey was John Malone<\/a>, whose partnership strategic vision and shared belief in the power of cable helped build and strengthen many of these iconic businesses over decades, Zaslav said. Inevitably echoing his earlier letter to WBD employees, he went on to say: \u201cIn many ways, it was a full circle moment for John and me when Warner Brothers Discovery came together in 2022 and we had the opportunity to work with the great businesses and brands that Ted imagined and built.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUm, OK. Biz and brands that have been sold off, again.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Paramount<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that, even before Wednesday\u2019s Q1 earnings call started, it was announced that pitchman Zaslav, CFO and almost cable channel spin-off CEO Gunner Wiendenfels, and streaming chief JB Perrette would \u201cnot be taking questions regarding the proposed Paramount<\/a> guidance transaction.\u201d Besides more on maverick Turner\u2019s death, talking about that transaction was kind of the point today of anyone really listening to the soon-to-exiting WBD execs.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet, Zas being Zas, the over $800 million parachuted CEO couldn\u2019t help but bang on abut the more than $30 a share price WBD got from David Ellison\u2019s Paramount \u2013 and that was just the start on today\u2019s call. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe also gave props to the strong \u201c30% year over year\u201d growth of CNN and HBO\u2019s powerful slate of Game of Thrones spinoffs and the return of Euphoria. To that, the verbose CEO pumped up HBO and streamer HBOMax as the real crown jewels in the WBD empire. Talking almost nothing but the Paramount purchase, Zas stated the Casey Boys-run HBO is a \u201cpiece of the business that you will see will be a huge benefit to Paramount when our deal closes together with their assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen\u201d being the operative term. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you thought David Zaslav had said all he had to say on the life and death of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[15284,7687,88,140196,10756,4208,113448,92],"class_list":["post-627661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-cnn","tag-david-zaslav","tag-entertainment","tag-john-malone","tag-obituaries","tag-paramount","tag-ted-turner","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}