Menu
People and Pop Culture

The Sit-Down: David Zaslav, Discovery Communications

When Discovery recently added Eurosport to its portfolio of channels, Zaslav embarked on a strategy of adding content. He talks about how niche content in one country may be destination programming in another, and why overloading consumers with choices doesn’t work.

I think we’re a great cable company. We know a lot about traditional content, sales, distribution. But we have a lot to learn about sports.

We got involved with Eurosport about a year and a half ago. … The strategy was that we have on average eight channels in 230 countries around the world. But not only do we have channels, but we have local infrastructure. So essentially we have a factory in every country.

We have salespeople, distribution people, marketing, promotion. And we have a real sense of culturally how those countries work.

Photo by: MARC BRYAN-BROWN
I was at NBC for about 18 years. I ran the cable division there. Near the end of the time I spent there, I was overseeing the content. We were trying to get outside the U.S. We had great content, but the only way that we could get carried outside of the U.S. was to sell the shows. We couldn’t get channels. We were too late.

When I was at NBC we made one big mistake. We just took our U.S. content and just pushed it out there. And it didn’t work. And we did it from 30 Rock. I’m talking about when I was working with Bob Wright and Jack Welch, 15 to 20 years ago. It didn’t work.  

Discovery had invested in channels, and so we had all these channels. Eurosport did the same thing. So Eurosport has between two and four channels in 70 countries. So if you’re the speedskating federation, and you want that sport to be carried, you could do a deal in every country in eastern and western Europe or you could do a deal with us and be carried in every one.

We have a lot of money in the company. We have a lot of ambition. We’ve invested about $7 billion in eastern and western Europe in the last six years. We’ve bought broadcast networks. We’ve launched channels. And we’ve looked at Eurosport as something that has this extraordinary platform and we had a vision that if we put more great content on it, promote it across all of our channels, that we could have something really significant.

With all the channels, we reach more than two times as many [subscribers] as ESPN.

Whether it’s the NBA or the NFL, or baseball, we’re one America. With the exception of maybe NASCAR, which skews significantly in different regions of America, it’s one country. If you go to Europe, there are certain markets where cross-country skiing is the No. 1 sport. It’s on top of soccer. If you go to Norway it’s ski jumping. In a number of countries, it’s handball.

There’s a lot of opportunity for lesser dollars to pick some sports that seem like they’re niche, and in many of our 70 countries they are niche. But in some of our countries it’s the most important sport. So we can use the fact that there’s different tastes in different markets to get much more efficient economic rights.

We bought the Bundesliga in non-German speaking countries. So for us, as opposed to being franchise programming, it became less expensive programming, but we need content to fill and soccer is pretty popular, so it’s not at the top of the list because it’s the Bundesliga, but when you go throughout Europe, if you can see the Bundesliga game in Italy, it does pretty well.

Our 14 channels here in the U.S., we were getting seven years ago about 5 percent viewership on cable. And we were spending about $500 million on content. We have now between 11 and 12 percent viewership on cable, and we’re spending over $2 billion. We had to do it, though.

If we were only 5 percent of viewership on cable, with the power of retrans, with the power of sports, the changing marketplace, there’s a real question of whether we would get tipped over.

The idea of loads of channels going directly to consumer is just not manageable for a consumer. There’s a curation fact that has to happen for all of us. With all the choices here in the U.S., when we had 40 channels, and today when we have 250 channels, people will still only watch six to eight channels. We’re human beings. We can’t digest 28 channels.

There was a rush to go on the Web for free, now there’s a rush to say we’re going to offer our content directly [with OTT]. But I think in the end, as content owners, we’re going to have to figure out what’s the right pricing, how do we do it in the way that doesn’t destroy the existing model, how do the consumers want to get the content on these other platforms and should we aggregate?

I was lucky that I got to work for over 15 years with Dick Ebersol. I don’t think there’s ever been anybody better. He’s an extraordinary storyteller and he also leans forward. When he launched “Sunday Night Football,” he didn’t just say, “Hey, it’s ‘Sunday Night Football.’” He said, “Hey, it’s ‘Sunday Night Football,’” and the firecrackers were going off, the stadium was exploding, and it was like, hey, if you’re not watching this, you’re missing something. He’s a great showman.

If we could just get a small bit of that showmanship to what’s already an amazing platform with some better content, Eurosport, I think, could kill.

There’s no question that when you talk to advertisers they still feel unequivocally that the best place to have an impact is on television. I think our view as an industry on the cable side was that more money would come into cable. Only a little more has come in so far.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2014/11/24/People-and-Pop-Culture/The-Sit-Down.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2014/11/24/People-and-Pop-Culture/The-Sit-Down.aspx

CLOSE