Media mogul John Malone says he's not worried about Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the conglomerate he helped found more than two years ago, as the company faces growing financial problems.
“They're not going to run out of cash anytime soon, so they don't have to sit back and watch the industry consolidate and do nothing,” said Wall Street analyst Craig Moffett. Malone said: Deadline reported in a recent research note.
According to Moffett's report, the tycoon described WBD's CEO, David Zaslav, as “the most energetic CEO, hands down more energetic than anyone I've ever met.”
Zaslav has faced intense scrutiny from investors in WBD, which owns and operates major media brands including CNN, Turner Sports and MAX.
The company recently Billions of dollars in price cuts The company has been investing in linear TV assets, and its stock price fell to an all-time low earlier this summer.
CNN's ratings have been consistently lower this year than rival networks Fox News and MSNBC, while WBD lost its latest rights to broadcast NBA games to streaming service Amazon and legacy media rival Comcast.
Zaslav himself will make nearly $50 million in 2023, and was quoted as saying this year that WBD hopes the federal government will allow more consolidation and better cooperation between media companies, whose audience share and advertising revenues are increasingly under pressure.
