Welcome back to In The Room. I’m Dylan Byers.

Tonight, on the heels of the annual Warner Bros. Discovery holiday press party, some year-end reflections and ruminations on David Zaslav’s Hollywood saga heading into an uncertain 2024. Plus, some updates on CNN’s dismal ratings and the great Zucker Telegraph chase.

And… Later this week on The Powers That Be, my colleague Peter Hamby and I consider what Zucker’s Telegraph bid could mean for the U.S. media landscape in a post-Murdoch world, and the 500-to-1 odds that the former CNN chief might one day end up with Fox. That goes live here on Friday.

In any event, this seemed like an opportune time to check in with David Zaslav & Co. and take stock of the pilgrim’s progress, 20 months post-merger. It’s no secret that Zaz looms large in the Puck Cinematic Universe. His rise to media moguldom via a brilliant stealth merger, his subsequent fall from Hollywood and Wall Street (and the media’s) good graces, and his unyielding effort to weather the storm and mastermind an exit, is in itself among the most compelling business stories of our time. More importantly, Zaz’s predicament—the debt, the streaming pivot, etcetera—is Hollywood’s too, and, fairly or unfairly, he has become the caricature for this uncertain era in the media business.

Without betraying confidences or off-the-record conversations, it occurred to me halfway through the night’s martini that Zaz and the WBD executive team have been remarkably chastened by their experience so far, and, honestly, in a rather refreshing way. The Zaz who had initially tried to refashion himself as a Hollywood savior and modern-day Jack Warner—and made himself the subject of far, far too many profiles in the process—was once again himself: a charismatic and affable guy, sure, but also a ruthless cost-cutter in the Welchian mold, who wasn’t afraid to make brutally unpopular decisions in order to generate cash flow. The recent New York Times Magazine opus on the man—hopefully the last, at least for a while, entry in the art of longform Zazology—seemed to cement this reputation as an “out-of-touch and overpaid corporate C.E.O.” who misjudged Hollywood.

By the bar, one WBD executive asked me what I thought of the Times piece. From a public relations perspective, it was obviously devastating, and undeniable evidence of just how far Zaz’s star had fallen in the eyes of, well, almost everyone. The Times had declared him “the widely reviled symbol of Wall Street’s exploitation of the town,” and the photos (which he probably shouldn’t have posed for) tried to convey that thesis, as well. On the other hand, I thought, Who cares? Zaslav isn’t going anywhere, of course, and the slings and arrows hardly seem to have dulled his self-confidence or his optimism about the path ahead. Plus, he’s already so fucking rich—a potential billionaire before all is said and done—that he might be able to laugh off the criticism as the mere price of doing business.

More to the point, now that the golden light of those early, halcyon days has faded, we can finally go back to judging him on the merits of his true mission—which is not to assuage Hollywood, but rather to execute a financial play and get rich(er) in the process.

And, sure, it’s hard to look at most of the available scoreboards—the share price (down 55 percent since the WBD stock was issued), the good will of the creative community, the press coverage—and spot a win. On the other hand, there’s Barbie, and HBO is still HBO, and as my colleague Bill Cohan has oft-noted, Zaz is paying down the debt, and he is generating free cash flow, to the tune of some $5 billion right now, by his account.

In any case, I don’t think you can judge Zaslav’s performance without considering the long-term calculation. The media industry is hurtling toward greater consolidation—the recent return of the bundle is only the latest manifestation of this inevitability—and conventional wisdom holds that in a matter of years there will only be one or two legacy media companies who get to have a seat at the table alongside Amazon, Apple and Netflix. The combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery was always a mere placeholder for another deal, as my colleague Matt Belloni first noted more than two years ago. In October, I reported that WBD was seriously eyeing a Paramount acquisition, post-2024, a fact Zaslav and John Malone later hinted at, as well. And that doesn’t preclude a much more substantial WBD-NBCU tie-up further down the line.

Whatever Zaslav’s personal reputation may be with the town, he still seems better positioned than most of his rivals to be occupying a chair when the music stops, or to at least engineer the deal that will hand Max, HBO, Warner Bros. et al., off to another suitor on favorable terms. In any event, Zaz & Co. are still operating on the assumption that, when the dust settles, they’ll be in a position to acquire.

Now, a lot needs to go right—he needs more Barbies, more Max subscribers, ideally a stronger CNN, etcetera—but none of his alleged sins has necessarily disadvantaged WBD in that regard. If Zaz’s WBD can earn more EBITDA as it services the debt, he’ll have the numerator-denominator combo that pops a stock. It’s a big if, but it will test the town’s memory and animus.

But of course, it’s also true that until the digital vision is fully realized, and until streaming becomes a formidable business in its own right, the linear product is what sustains CNN and accounts for the vast majority of its revenue. And the most recent ratings to come across the transom are staggeringly low, even by the standards of modern-day cable news.

So, fine, pick a different metric: Last week’s primetime averages were down double-digit percentages from the same week a year ago. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are unsustainable numbers for the linear business, tangible evidence of the enduring damage that Chris Licht’s leadership did to the brand, and yet another reminder of the Herculean challenge Thompson faces in restoring its reputation.

Will Thompson change primetime? It’s a question I get asked quite often these days, mostly from folks inside CNN. The honest answer is that I really don’t know (Thompson has held his plans admirably close to the vest). Surely, he must have asked himself—and perhaps his direct reports—whether this is really the best that the world’s leading news network can do in its marquee hours. Officially, the network is fully behind this strategy, and some members of the network’s top brass have told me that I’m far too bearish about these anchors’ potential. Perhaps. But if the numbers continue to trend in this direction, no one will be around to see that potential realized, anyway.

The broadside from Döpfner—who, until recently, was also vying for The Telegraph—no doubt annoyed Zucker and Sheikh Mansour. Far more inconvenient, however, was the news this week that U.K. regulator Ofcom plans to demand access to RedBird IMI executives’ texts, emails, and WhatsApp messages as part of their review of the deal. (Of course, this is not the first time Zucker has been required to hand over his phone.)

In any event, all this is a reminder of the climate of opposition to this deal in the U.K., which doesn’t necessarily have any material effect on whether or not it goes through, but certainly complicates the narrative for Zucker and RedBird IMI in the event that they do win the asset.

Without dismissing Abu Dhabi’s motivations in global media, I still default to the position that this is more of a straightforward business deal than the critics suspect: an attempt by Zucker to get back into the media business by any means necessary. And, at present, the best available asset is The Telegraph, which, as I’ve noted before, is an already profitable and influential paper that can serve as a springboard to a larger international business. “Journalism is journalism,” my colleague Bill Cohan notes this week, “the rest is just a question of distribution.” Moreover, I’m not sure Mansour and the Emiratis really need a newspaper to wield influence in the U.K., or anywhere. The simplest explanation may be the right one: they’ve got the money (lots of money), trust Zucker’s acumen and ambition, and want to be along for the ride.