REAL_0418_ZASLAV_WSN_1207_IN THE NEWS 3/20/18 12:45 PM Page 2
TV REAL 25
Last year, Discovery Communications announced its intent to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive. The deal brings together some of the most popular factual brands in the payTV universe, from Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and ID: Investigation Discovery to HGTV, Food Network and DIY. David Zaslav, the president and CEO of the newly combined entity, Discovery, Inc., is well aware that viewers want total flexibility in the way they watch programming and he is leading his teams’ efforts to make content available on all linear and nonlinear platforms. Recognizing the social responsibility of a corporate group, he has also spearheaded Project C.A.T., an initiative that is dear to his heart and aims to double the global wild tiger population by 2022. By Anna Carugati TV REAL: What direct-to-consumer products are you offering? ZASLAV: We have a few now. In Europe, we have our sports streaming product, the Eurosport Player. Through Eurosport, the Olympics were presented on broadcast, on cable, on all platforms in a way that had never been seen in Europe before. A piece of that was Eurosport Player, where people were able to view every sport, every event, and that had never happened before in Europe. We have another direct-to-consumer product called Motor Trend OnDemand, which we are really excited about. We put our auto-TV channel Velocity in a new venture called Motor Trend [with TEN: The Enthusiast Network]. We put it together with 30 titles including Motor Trend and a big team in Los Angeles that’s doing short-form auto content. You can buy Motor Trend OnDemand for $5 [a month]. We’re the leader in car content around the world. We have more car auctions than anyone else. We see that vertical; if you love cars, eventually, not only are you going to be watching our car channels around the world, you’ll have Motor Trend OnDemand on your phone or your device. TV REAL: You have numerous businesses in Europe. Which ones are showing the most potential for growth? ZASLAV: The biggest potential for growth for us right now, in general, is that there would be some economic growth around the world. We’ve been able to grow our international business with effectively zero GDP growth in Europe for the past ten years—zero. And GDP and advertising tend to follow one another. In Latin America, there has been a lot of political disruption. We’ve become very efficient and effective in running our businesses and growing them during political and economic challenges. For the first time, it has started to look like there might be the beginnings of an economic recovery across Europe and Latin America. Not all of it but across some of it. That would be a big benefit to us because we are in more than 220 markets, in more than 50 languages and the advertising market has a direct correlation to GDP. If you see GDP starting to rise, it means there will be more money; the economies are stronger; people
will be spending more money on advertising because companies will be investing in growth. TV REAL: In the U.S., consumers are looking for smaller cable packages. Since your brands cater to super-fans, viewers will want them in their skinny bundles. ZASLAV: If you look at what people say they love about cable, between Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, OWN, TLC, ID, HGTV, Food Network and Cooking Channel, we have some of the most-loved brands in America. We also have the ability to go direct to consumer ourselves over time if, in fact, the existing distributors don’t launch a direct-to-consumer product, but I think they will. We are having a lot of conversations, and the distributors are quite smart. They are looking at what’s going on around the world, and they are looking at the decline here in the U.S. They are talking to their subscribers and are going on college campuses and seeing why people buy Netflix—it’s because it’s the only service they can buy for $8 a month. TV REAL: In 2016, Discovery announced Project C.A.T.: Conserving Acres for Tigers. How did it come about? This is particularly important to you, isn’t it? ZASLAV: Tom Brokaw [former NBC Nightly News anchor] and I became good friends from my time working at NBC. He told me about the concept of a rendezvous with destiny, which is something he writes about in his book The Greatest Generation, about the Great Depression generation that went on to win World War II. I believe solving wildlife extinction is our own rendezvous with destiny. If we don’t act, more than 50 percent of the species that exist on Earth won’t exist for my grandchildren. Project C.A.T. is one of the ways we’re taking action. There are fewer than 4,000 tigers left in the wild around the world, making them one of the most highly endangered species. We partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to help double the world’s wild tiger population by 2022, by preserving land space in India and Bhutan for them to live and reproduce.
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