David Zaslav was met with boos and jeers during a speech Sunday at Boston University amid a Hollywood writers’ strike.

IN videos circulating on social mediagraduate students and protesters can be heard chanting “pay your writers” and shouting at the president of Warner Bros. Discovery when he talks about the lessons he has learned throughout his career. Photo aircraft flying over the ceremony, with a banner “David Zaslav – pay your writers”, which also circulated on the Internet.

Outside Nickerson Field, where the prom was being held, demonstrators carried signs reading “F*!# Zaslav! Solidarity with Writers. At the stadium, the graduates were holding posters with the inscription: “Who wrote your speech? GPT Chat? and “Ugh, David” is a reference to the Emmy-winning sitcom Shitt’s Creek. At least one student had “BU Students Support the Writers Guild of America” ​​written on their graduation cap.

In addition to performing at the graduation ceremony at the university, Zaslav received an honorary degree. The film industry executive studied law at Boston University in the 1980s before rising through the ranks at NBCUniversal and Discovery.

“I am grateful to my alma mater, Boston University, for inviting me to attend tonight’s prom and for awarding me an honorary degree,” Zaslav said Sunday in a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times. “As I have often said, I support the writers immensely and hope that the strike will be resolved soon and in such a way that, in their opinion, they recognize their worth.”

This is not the first time Zaslav has faced public scrutiny. The mogul came under fire last fall for his handling of the Warner Bros. merger. Discovery, which led to mass layoffs and the sudden termination of several projects. Among the victims was a Warner Bros. movie. and DC Studios’ Batgirl, which has already cost around $90 million to make.

Amid mounting criticism, Zaslav doubled down on the studio’s controversial decisions to scrap future games like Batgirl and remove existing content from its streaming platform.

“Let me be clear,” Zaslav said in November. “We didn’t get rid of any show that helped us.”

Six months later, a writers’ strike began after contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance stalled. The WGA is demanding pay increases, residual income from streaming content, and increased union health and retirement plan contributions for its members.

At least one Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” continued filming during the shutdown after stockpiling scripts ahead of the strike. Popular series such as Netflix’s Stranger Things are on hold until the conflict is resolved.

Times staff writer Meg James another Associated Press contributed to this report.