President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav says the days of unlimited budgets for streaming projects is over.
Speaking as part of his company’s quarterly earnings call, Zaslav says “the grand experiment of creating something at any cost is over” but firmly believes that doesn’t mean an end to great content:
“I was recently asked if I thought the golden age of content was over. I said absolutely not. There’s nothing more important than content, people consuming more content than they ever have. But it has to be great content. It’s no longer about how much… [the] strategy to collapse all windows, start linear and theatrical and spend money with abandon, while making a fraction in return… is deeply flawed”
The comments come as Zaslav confirmed plans to raise the company’s savings target to $3.5 billion, up $500 million over its initial target. his company has been cutting content costs across the board, killing a number of high-profile series from “Demimonde” to “The Big D” along with killing off all child/young adult content on the streamer.
One person who doesn’t seem to be a fan of all this brutal cost-cutting is Joe Russo, one of the directors of Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame” who told Variety this week that he has a real issue with the cancellation of “Batgirl” as a tax write-off and minces no words about what happened:
“It’s rare that I can think of something that high profile, that expensive, that was murdered in such a way. It’s sad, but we’re at a time in the business where corporate sociopathy is going to rear its head because people are scared.”
Zaslav also addressed the write-downs and removals of a number of series from HBO Max including scripted series such as “Camping,” “Mrs. Fletcher,” “Run” and “Vinyl” which are gone from the streamer. Of those abrupt removals of library content, he says: “All those write offs… we didn’t take one show off a platform that is going to help us in any way.”
Another way for Warner Bros. Discovery to increase revenue? Increase subscription prices and ad loads. Warner Bros Discovery streaming and games CEO JB Perrette has reportedly indicated that prices for the service will soon head ‘north’ and the ad load could potentially double from its current level for those on the lower cost tier.
Source: Deadline
