Max Hbo-Max: Last News

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Warner Bros. Discovery enacted 100 layoffs Tuesday as part of a planned downsizing of the company’s ad sales departments that had been in the works since Discovery closed its merger with WarnerMedia in April, Variety has confirmed. These cuts are part of a previously reported and expected 30% reduction overall across the ad sales division, a sector of the merged company with many redundancies, in the coming weeks. However, not all of the exits will be layoffs, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation. An undisclosed number of those departures will be negotiated deals, while others will be retirements. The layoffs set in motion Tuesday are the latest in a string of moves made by Warner Bros. Discovery in an attempt to fulfill the promise made by CEO David Zaslav and his exec team to find $3 billion in cost-saving synergies in the first two years after the merger. The most high profile so far, aside from other layoffs within Warner Bros. Discovery, was the decision that “Batgirl,” the $90 million Warner Bros./DC movie starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, would not be released theatrically, on HBO Max, or anywhere else. 

WarnerMedia is moving into the already-crowded streaming service market this May with HBO Max. The new streaming platform will combine titles from across the Warner Bros. film and TV library as well as introduce original films and series, but it will have to compete with established services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, as well as CBS All Access, Disney+, Apple TV+, and NBCUniversal's Peacock.