A fleeting take on Zaslav

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JW

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Jul 4, 2023, 7:38:24 PM7/4/23
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Make of it what you will, but this column seems to have come and gone from GQ's website.

Bob Jersey

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Jul 5, 2023, 2:32:29 PM7/5/23
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The article was poorly edited. WBD kvetched, and GQ pulled. 
The Newhouse family, which at one time co-controlled Time Warner Cable, still hold Condé Nast, parent of GQ.
B

JW, July 4th:

Kevin M.

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Jul 5, 2023, 5:44:51 PM7/5/23
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Then there’s this…


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Kevin M. (RPCV)

PGage

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Jul 5, 2023, 7:21:57 PM7/5/23
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All this is just about what we would expect to have been going on behind the scenes if this incident. I think the story though is that the original piece was if anything too soft. The allusion to Pretty Woman is entirel accurate, but does not clearly enough make the point that Zas is not so much making  cuts to save the company by making it profitable, but a premeditated strategy to obscenely increase his own personal wealth. That is the Ricard Gere character, but I don’t think most readers would have fully gotten the point.

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Paul Murray

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Jul 5, 2023, 11:04:58 PM7/5/23
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To be clear, if you compare the original and revised versions of the column, there are no factual differences, only a less aggressive tone. So the WBD spin is BS.

Major ethical faceplant by GQ on this one, especially in light of the Variety story.

And whoever at WBD thought complaining to GQ would improve the situation should read up about the Streisand Effect.

Seriously, has Zaslav accomplished anything positive since the merger?

JW

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Jul 6, 2023, 7:45:46 AM7/6/23
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Kevin M.

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Jul 6, 2023, 3:12:30 PM7/6/23
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On Wed, Jul 5, 2023 at 8:05 PM Paul Murray <pmur...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
To be clear, if you compare the original and revised versions of the column, there are no factual differences, only a less aggressive tone. So the WBD spin is BS.

Major ethical faceplant by GQ on this one, especially in light of the Variety story.

And whoever at WBD thought complaining to GQ would improve the situation should read up about the Streisand Effect.

Seriously, has Zaslav accomplished anything positive since the merger?

I can’t find the article now, but one industry insider said Zaslav’s actions are the equivalent of using a thimble to bail water out of a rapidly sinking boat. 

I liken it to the TV executives who cancelled all the folksy/western TV shows all at once in the 1970s. As a long term business decision, it was probably a good idea, but from a PR standpoint, it offended a sizable chunk of the viewing population, and decades later, people still cite its narrow-mindedness in communications and media classes. 

Zaslav is saving money for his company in the long term. What remains to be seen is whether his decisions will lead to the complete breakdown of his company in the short term. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

PGage

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Jul 6, 2023, 4:02:57 PM7/6/23
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But of course this is the point of the Pretty Woman analogy; he literally does not care about the long term health of his company (at least of the non-Discovery parts). He has already made almost $200 million, and will make a lot more if he can cut enough debt, the sell the pieces.

Mark Jeffries

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Jul 6, 2023, 6:21:09 PM7/6/23
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Pat Buttram on the Rural Purge:  "They took every show with a tree off."

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com


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