All these issues pale next to the biggest question hovering over any top job at WBD: How long will this gig last? The company is grappling with that heavy debt load and skeptical investors. One former Zaslav exec recently received a letter from a due-diligence firm on behalf of an unspecified client, asking for his evaluation of Zaslav’s leadership style, strategic plans and likelihood of success. That could suggest various possibilities — a potential acquirer digging around, a dissident shareholder sniffing for weakness, a hedge fund trying to place a bet. So much uncertainty.

Given the company’s daunting challenges, it has become accepted wisdom at the highest levels of the industry that another deal waits in the wings for Warner Bros. Discovery. For reasons related to the complicated structure of that merger, no negotiations can happen until April 2024. But at that point, many industry observers believe that Comcast’s Brian Roberts will make a long-awaited move, looking to combine NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery.



That deal would face some interesting antitrust issues but would give his company scale and a viable streaming service. “Obviously Peacock sucks,” says one exec with knowledge of both companies. “There are some good synergies. I’m sure [Roberts] is licking his chops because the [WBD] stock is so low. And I think that’s Zaslav’s endgame. Get the place sold.” (Roberts and NBCU CEO Jeff Shellmet with Zaslav and board member John Maloneduring the Allen & Co. gathering in Sun Valley last July, but given the rules against plotting any combination, that was no doubt just a friendly get-together.) A WBD spokesperson responds: “We are building Warner Bros. Discovery for the long term.”

Many top industry execs are so convinced a deal will happen that some are pre-mourning an event that may never happen. “People feel like it’s Comcast for sure,” says the head of one company. “It’s going to be so depressing to lose another major studio [after Disney bought Fox]. And Warners was the Tiffany studio.”

The lawsuit says that, among several other “adverse information” being kept hidden, the merging companies overstated the subscriber base for HBO Max:

“WarnerMedia was improvidently concentrating its investments in streaming and ignoring its other business lines … [and] overstated the number of subscribers to HBO Max by as many as 10 million subscribers, by including as subscribers AT&T customers who had received bundled access to HBO Max, but had not signed onto the service.”