David Zaslav (born January 15, 1960) is an American media executive who is the current CEO and president of Warner Bros.
[1] Zaslav became CEO and president of Discovery, Inc. in 2006, and focused on the company’s core networks, programming, and expanding its reach into Digital media.
Prior to Discovery, Zaslav worked at NBCUniversal where he helped develop and launch the cable channels CNBC and MSNBC.
[4][5] David Zaslav was born into a Jewish family[6][7] in New York City's Brooklyn borough[8] on January 15, 1960.
[15] As president of Cable and Domestic TV and New Media Distribution, he helped develop and launch CNBC and MSNBC,[16] oversaw content distribution to all forms of TV, negotiated for cable and satellite carriage of NBCUniversal networks and forged media partnerships.
[40] The service debuted in the US on March 23, 2023, in Latin America and the Caribbean on February 27, 2024, and in parts of EMEA on May 21, 2024, with additional international markets to follow.
[43] Zaslav also received backlash for the removal of many of Warner Bros' animated programs from streaming platforms and pulling some of the service's content in general, including Final Space (which was written-off for taxes), Tig n' Seek, Elliott from Earth, Infinity Train, Summer Camp Island, The Fungies!, Close Enough, The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo and nearly 200 episodes of Sesame Street, among others, a decision Infinity Train creator Owen Dennis remarked rendered many of the programs effectively as "lost media".
[47] In August 2023, Zaslav appointed Mark Thompson, former president and CEO of The New York Times and former Director General at the BBC, as the new CNN chief.
[51] In February 2024, a group of US congressmen sent a letter to Zaslav criticizing World's Ultimate Frontier, a joint production between Discovery and Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network (CGTN), for "whitewashing genocide" of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
[55] Zaslav serves on the boards of Sirius XM, American Cinematheque, Grupo Televisa, and Syracuse University.
[61] In 2012, he received the Steven J. Ross Humanitarian Award from the United Jewish Appeal Federation (UJA) of New York which honors people of vision, energy and sustained achievement in the entertainment, media and communications industries.
[66] During the 2020 election cycle, Zaslav donated over $240,000 to Democratic politicians and PACs,[67] as well as $5,600 to Republican senator Jim Risch.