Billionaire media veteran John Malone will not be reelected on the Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) board and will be Chairperson’s honor after his term ends on June 2, the date of the annual shareholders’ meeting.
Malone, 84, will continue to attend committee meetings and provide strategic advice. As of 2024, financial data provider LSEG said it owns around 0.8% of its WBD shares.
The chairman of Liberty Media, considered one of the sharpest minds of the media strategy, supported David Zaslav in a $43 billion merger of Warnermedia and Discovery, which was closed in April 2022 and created WBD, with Zaslav as CEO.
However, the company’s stock price has plummeted since the merger, currently below $8, a 25% drop from the start of the year and a 67% decline since the end of the merger, with the stock price at about $24.
Zaslav has suffered from the heavy debt load that has led to layoffs over the past two years. Building streaming operations is a key mission, reflecting the priorities of other media giants, with some of the business making profits in recent quarters. Zaslav and his team are targeting the largest global subscriber at 150m by the end of 2026.
Last December, acknowledging that the decline in linear television is hampering growth, the company said it would split into two by mid-2025, separating linear, streaming and studio operations.
Malone is confident that WBD is “on the right path” and looks forward to his new role in “helping shape the growth trajectory as the company evaluates key strategic and structural opportunities first.”
The WBD intends to nominate Anton Levy for election to the board in the summer, with the number remaining on 13 directors, of which 12 will become independent.
In a proxy application Friday, WBD said Zaslav’s annual compensation increased by about 4% in 2024, an increase of $51.9 million.
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