WBD CEO Zaslav Throws Shade at Paramount+ and Peacock, Predicts They’ll Give Up and Wave ‘White Flag’

In today’s earnings call, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav sought to position his soon-to-be-split company as one of five truly global streaming players.

“One of the reasons we have fought so hard over the last three years to be a truly global player, and there’s really only four or five global players right now, truly global players: Amazon, Netflix, Disney, YouTube, and us,” Zaslav said. “As more and more of these regional players are looking at the cost of building a platform, the engineers, the marketing, and also how differentiated in many cases, we are from them and how much stronger we are together, that it’s a much better consumer experience.”

“There’ll be a lot of those smaller players that want to become part of the global players. And that’s what we’re seeing, you know, and we’re seeing it on an accelerated basis. It may start with bundling, and that’s very effective. We’re doing much better with Disney than we thought,” Zaslav said. “(Smaller streamers) have demos that we don’t have. We have demos that they don’t have. So it’s just better together. Some of it will be a result of consolidation in some markets and some will be ‘white flag: ‘I don’t wanna lose money anymore.’ A lot of companies want to get back to what they do, which is just produce content and leave the direct-to-consumer fight — that global fight — to others.”

So, which streaming players might he be talking about?

The answer seems obvious: Peacock and Paramount+.

Warner Bros. Discovery announced it now has 125.7 million subscribers (most on HBO Max, though Discovery+ is techically included) That’s more than Paramount+ (77.7 million) and Peacock (41 million) combined. He could also be including something like AMC+ or STARZ (7.1 million), but no one thinks about AMC+ or STARZ, including the people running AMC+ and STARZ.

With the Skydance-Paramount merger now complete, David Ellison will be in charge of charting the course. Paramount+ has some strong brands and popular originals, but it lacks a cohesive strategy. Today, Ellison wrote, “We are committed to increasing investment in premium, exclusive content because we understand that exceptional storytelling is the single biggest driver of subscriber growth and loyalty.” Doesn’t sound like a man who’s giving up.

Peacock is more like a windsock. The service seems to change direction three or four times a year. In the face of ESPN’s ever-growing portfolio, Peacock is placing a huge bet that the NBA will be its savior this fall. It just jacked up prices for all its subscribers. Its original content strategy seems split between reality shows in the Bravo mold (“The Traitors,” “Love Island”) , a handful of dramas, and spinoffs of previously successful shows (“‘Bel-Air,” “The Paper”). Comcast is dumping most of its TV channels to a new company called Versant, so those won’t be any help creating content.

Both Paramount+ and Peacock are nice streamers with a handful of good shows and movies and a few sports. They lack the strong brand identity of a Disney+ or Hulu.

Zaslav’s thick head finally realized the power of brands when he changed the name of his streamer back to HBO Max. In nearly every earnings call, Zaslav repeats the same brands over and over: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter. HBO has been marvelous in creating iconic entertainment over the years. And Zaslav, who is more suited to working in a tollbooth than as the head of a media company, is reaping the benefits of 100 years of creativity by Warner Bros’ partners. Even though Zaslav is a clod, he’s letting the creatives create, and that may save him.

As for Paramount+ and Peacock, their parent companies could indeed wave the flag. The regulatory aspect of the NBC (Peacock) and CBS (Paramount+) components may make a merger impossible, but bean counters at both companies may ultimately conclude there’s no way to make those platforms the profit centers they were intended to be.

For the record, investors aren’t buying what Zaslav is selling. The stock dropped more than 7 percent after the earnings release today.