![](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Museum-Bourse-de-Commerce-4.jpg\")
View Gallery<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nRelated Gallery<\/h3>\nFran\u00e7ois Pinault\u2019s New Contemporary Art Museum Bourse de Commerce in Paris<\/h2>\n<\/article>\n
The deal and Discovery’s incursion into the so-called “broadcast week” of the annual upfront presentations, lent the proceedings a whiff of swagger. Discovery’s channels reach 173 million U.S. consumers, including 23 million who only watch Discovery on digital, according to U.S. ad sales chief John Steinlauf. The presentation, which clocked in at 90 minutes, included a commitment to produce 5,000 hours of new linear programming and “hundreds of new series” exclusive to streaming service Discovery Plus that will feature Discovery personalities including Chip and Joanna Gaines, Bobby Flay and Giada De Laurentiis and Guy Fieri. The network also previewed Jon Stewart’s “No Responders Left Behind,” a documentary about the erstwhile “Daily Show” host’s efforts with activist John Feal and firefighter Ray Pfeifer (who died of cancer caused by the noxious debris at the World Trade Center) to secure government-funded health benefits and a compensation fund for 9\/11 first responders.<\/p>\n
“Our streaming service is built to complement linear, not cannibalize it,” vowed Steinlauf.<\/p>\n
And Zaslav has said that the combined Discovery-WarnerMedia would spend $20 billion annually on TV and film content.<\/p>\n
Zaslav returned at the end of the presentation to talk up Discovery’s new headquarters in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, after decades in Silver Spring, MD. “We are a company on the move,” he said.<\/p>\n
It was an endorsement of the reopening of his hometown as a global media powerhouse after the ravages of the pandemic, and a symbolic land grab for the Brooklyn-born executive. Said Zaslav: “Never bet against New York.”<\/p>\n