Discovery Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav announced the
name during a town hall meeting Tuesday with WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. Mr.
Zaslav, who will lead Warner Bros. Discovery, added that the name is meant to
evoke the company’s focus on storytelling, exemplified by the nearly
century-old Warner Bros. studio.
Also during the town hall, Mr. Zaslav said the new company’s
tagline will be “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of,” a reference to the classic
1941 noir film “The Maltese Falcon” starring Humphrey Bogart and distributed by
the Warner Bros. film studio. During one scene in the movie Mr. Bogart’s
character, Sam Spade, refers to the titular Maltese Falcon statuette as “the
stuff that dreams are made of,” a line that riffs on a similar one in Shakespeare’s
“The Tempest.”
Mr. Zaslav said during the meeting that the company’s new
name and tagline are intended to emphasize its heritage as a content company.
Under AT&T’s leadership, WarnerMedia has sometimes faced internal division
over the relationship between its business goals and its creative culture, The
Wall Street Journal has reported.
Tuesday’s meeting was the first time the two executives made
a joint appearance since Discovery and AT&T announced the deal in May. Mr.
Kilar wasn’t involved in early-stage negotiations between AT&T and Discovery,
leading to speculation that he might not have a substantial role during the two
companies’ integration. But last week, Mr. Kilar told employees that he would
stay until the merger is completed.
During the roughly 40-minute meeting, Mr. Zaslav said that
he would fight to keep the best people from both Discovery and WarnerMedia.
“We’re not coming in here thinking that we know all the
answers,” Mr. Zaslav said of his company’s approach to the acquisition. “There
is a ton we don’t know. And there’s certainly a whole bunch that you guys know
a lot better than we do.”
Mr. Zaslav also reflected on Discovery’s early
video-streaming efforts, noting that the company had started with a plan to
launch many niche services before deciding to combine much of the programming
into a single offering called Discovery+.
“The consumer eventually tells you how they want to receive
the content,” he said.
One factor making video-streaming “a much more challenging
business” than cable, Mr. Zaslav said, is churn—customers’ tendency to let
their subscriptions lapse for a variety of reasons. In traditional TV, unlike
in streaming, he said, “the only churn is when somebody turns their TV set
off.”
Toward the end of the meeting, as the two executives
discussed the possibilities for Warner Bros. Discovery, Mr. Zaslav said he was
excited to continue speaking with Mr. Kilar—clarifying that the pair would talk
about the industry generally, not the merger, which still requires regulatory
approval.
Mr. Kilar laughed, adding, “There’ll be lawyers all around
us for the next year.”