WarnerMedia’s chief executive officer said he is not planning on stepping down this year after it was announced that WarnerMedia would be merging with Discovery Inc. in 2022.
CEO Jason Kilar said in a companywide email Thursday that he would not be leaving the company, a source told The Wall Street Journal.
AT&T announced the merging of the companies last week. In its announcement, AT&T did not address what would happen with Kilar.
“My plan and my focus is to remain here in my CEO role at WarnerMedia. I am not thinking right now about postmerger. There will be a time to consider that topic in 2022,” Kilar said at a town hall meeting on Thursday.
Discovery CEO David Zaslav has already signed a deal to become the head of the new company that will be created by the merger.
“Because I believe we have unfinished business and the work of the next year can and should be extremely fulfilling as the world continues to see what we are capable of doing,” Kilar said.
The new company that will be formed will own all of WarnerMedia including CNN, Warner Bros., HBO, HBO Max, Turner Sports, TNT, TBS, TCM, Cartoon Network and other media channels.
It will also control all of Discovery Inc. including Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, the Science Channel, Animal Planet and dozens of other channels.