| The C.E.O. of a conglomerate that includes Warner Bros. studios, CNN, and HBO takes on an entertainment business in turmoil.  Illustration by Nicholas Konrad / The New Yorker; Source photograph by Steve Mack / Everett / Alamy In May, 2021, David Zaslav was announced as the C.E.O. of a new media company, Warner Bros. Discovery—a vast conglomerate that melded Discovery’s holdings with those of WarnerMedia, which encompassed HBO, Warner Bros.’s film and television studios, CNN, and a suite of cable channels including TNT, TBS, and Turner Classic Movies. Under Zaslav, W.B.D. adopted a new slogan, “the stuff that dreams are made of.” But, as Clare Malone reports in a thorough feature today, the media executive joined the movie business at a bracingly inglorious moment. The advent of streaming video has demolished old business models. The unions that represent the industry’s actors and writers are carrying out a bitter and prolonged strike. And W.B.D. is saddled with colossal debts. As soon as he took over the company, Zaslav began slashing costs and laying off hundreds of workers. “For many, Zaslav is something of an antihero, at the center of the town’s story for all the wrong reasons,” Malone writes. “Those in what one insider half-jokingly calls ‘the Hollywood deep state’ seem unsure that he is up to the task of building a new entertainment-industry power under difficult circumstances.” Meanwhile, media-C.E.O. salaries have continued to grow amid the transformation of the entertainment industry. On the picket line, actors and writers point not just at Zaslav’s compensation package—valued at two hundred and forty-six million dollars in 2021—but also at his seeming interest in playing mogul while the entertainment business implodes. But, even as they protest, they need Zaslav and his peers to help Hollywood make sense again: to calibrate a streaming system so they can make both art and money. Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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