Discovery CEO David Zaslav Looks Overseas Amid Rise In U.S. Cord-Cutting

Discovery Communications Inc. CEO David Zaslav said that he is not worried "about the rise of cord-cutting in the U.S.," according to Gerry Smith of BLOOMBERG. That is because he is "taking a global view." Zaslav said, "As you look around the world, there’s still a lot of growth left." He said that Discovery "is expanding across Latin America and parts of eastern Europe where pay-TV subscribers are still growing in numbers." Much of that overseas investment "has been in sports programming." This summer, the company "took full control of Eurosport," a pan-European sports media group, and paid $1.4B for exclusive European broadcast rights to air the Olympics from '18-24. Zaslav said of Eurosport, "When we look at it, it looks a lot like ESPN looked 15 years ago." Discovery’s int'l approach "has had some challenges, however." He said currency fluctuations were "a big hurt for us" this year (BLOOMBERG, 12/8).