Another wave of Warner Bros Discovery post-merger layoffs is coming. We hear multiple divisions of the merged company will be impacted, with Warner Bros.
Television Group considered a main target. The staff reductions are expected this week, as soon as Tuesday. Speculation about the pending downsizing started spreading like wildfire Monday morning.
Reps for WBD and WBTVG declined comment. The number of layoffs is unclear but appears to be substantial. The HBO/HBO Max programming operation in August laid off 14% of staff — about 70 people — the vast majority of them on the Max side, with the areas of Max Non-Fiction Originals, International, Acquisitions, Casting and Live-Action Family Originals as the most heavily impacted.
A new round of WBD layoffs was expected in the fall as the goal has been for the cuts to be over before the start of the holiday season, so this is not a surprise. “Everyone was given financial targets going into Q4,” a corporate insider told Deadline. “Those targets include head counts, and October was always the expectation for the ax to fall.” Like with HBO/HBO Max, the WBTVG layoffs are expected to be accompanied by a some sort of realignment spearheaded by Chairman Channing Dungey.
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