Warner Bros. Discovery Lays Off Four Top OWN Execs, Including Oprah Winfrey’s Comms Chief Nicole Nichols (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Selome Hailu Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off Nicole Nichols, Karen Grant-Selma, Jennifer Giddens and MaryBeth Cunin from their executive positions at the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), Variety has learned exclusively.Nichols is OWN’s executive vice president of communications.

She also heads communication for Harpo Productions, Winfrey’s production company, and serves as Winfrey’s personal representative.

She will now transition into focusing on these roles full-time.Grant-Selma serves as general counsel for the network, while Giddens is chief marketing officer and Cunin is head of programming and scheduling.The news adds to a long string of high-profile exits since David Zaslav took over as the CEO of a post-merger WBD.

However, most major departures before this have come from the Warner Bros. side of the equation — WarnerMedia CEO and chairman Ann Sarnoff and global communications head Johanna Fuentes, to name a few — while OWN is a Discovery property.