“Pay Your Writers!” Chants Drown Out at Warner Bros. CEO’s Graduation Speech

At a recent event, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, faced boos from the crowd. He is among the high-profile figures caught up in the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. 

The strike, which affects productions across the industry, resulted from a deadlock in talks with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over issues such as fair pay for writers (especially in the streaming sector) and the use of artificial intelligence.

Zaslav’s commencement speech at Boston University on Sunday was met with protests from the audience, as seen in a video shared by many striking writers, including Mike Scollins from Late Night with Seth Myers. 

The video shows Zaslav being drowned out by chants of “Pay your writers!” several times. At one point, he has to pause for five seconds because of the noise.

Zaslav was not a familiar name to many until last year. He had been an executive and board member with various companies, including NBCUniversal and Sirius XM, before becoming the CEO of the new Warner Bros. Discovery company after leading the merger. 

His rise to prominence was accompanied by controversy over his decision-making.

His new leadership led to a major overhaul of the HBO Max streaming service (soon to be renamed Max), which was widely criticized by the industry. 

The most prominent casualty was the DC Universe film Batgirl, which was scrapped while in post-production. Many other shows and movies also faced cancellation, delay, or disappearance from the platform following the merger.

Since then, David Zaslav has been at the center of every controversial HBO announcement, defending his plans for the company with statements that have drawn backlash for their “both sides” approach. 

The CEO’s reputation has suffered from the cancelation of Westworld, the reboot of Harry Potter with J.K. Rowling’s involvement, and other unpopular moves. 

Combined with the resentment from the AMPTP during the strike, it was only a matter of time before he faced the crowd’s wrath at a public setup like this commencement speech.