WarnerMedia is expected to lay off at least 800 employees in its Warner Bros. and HBO operations as part of a broad restructuring put in place by the unit’s CEO, Jason Kilar.
Warner Bros. she is expected to begin dismissal on Monday of about 650 people, according to people familiar with the matter, while HBO is seen between 150 and 175 staff members. A WarnerMedia spokeswoman declined to comment.
The dismissals come after Kilar unveiled a major overhaul of the media company’s operations on Friday, fired the top programming leaders at HBO Max, Robert Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly and ran WarnerMedia’s production companies in one operation. In her place, Kilar Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff took the lead in developing content for the new streaming service, as well as the company on major entertainment-focused base cable networks: TNT, TBS and truTV. Andy Forssell, general manager of HBO Max, was arrested for the new entity’s business operations.
Other media companies have begun to forget staff, as they are not only struggling with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, but also a rush of consumers from linear television to streaming video on demand. NBCUniversal, the Comcast-owned media giant, has introduced staff reductions in recent days. That company has struggled with economic headwinds encouraged by closure of theme parks, limits on content production and a decline in advertising. And earlier this week it announced that it would elevate a single executor, Frances Berwick, to manage content for streams, cable and broadcast locations, while a new person sought to develop programming for all three.
The moves are likely to cause fear at WarnerMedia, which has reorganized several areas of its business since it was acquired by AT&T for about $ 85 billion in 2018. Since AT&T took over the company, formerly known as Time Warner, top executives have been with years oversight of distribution, programming and advertising sales are gone. Kilar’s rise to the role of CEO in May has only served to further recalibration.
AT&T bought the company with a view to expanding its business rights in content production, and executives have been pushing hard to use Time Warner’s HBO service as the hub of a new, wider, high-polished streaming video outlet series such as “Succession” and “Watchmen”, but also broader rates such as reruns of “Friends” and the new Seth Rogen comedy car “An American Pickle.”
The task has not been easy. AT&T made extensive debut thanks to its acquisition and the so-called “streaming wars” of the sector have drawn many powerful entities to the forefront. Comcast has also launched an NBCUniversal service, Peacock, in recent months, and ViacomCBS and Discovery have indicated they intend to be more involved in the fight in the coming weeks.
As the media sector focuses more intensively on satisfying customers with an on-demand jones for their favorite series, they are finalizing their operations and working on ways to manage the availability of their series across various “windows” displays. At times, that could mean new emphasis on asking a viewer to watch both linear TV and streaming for content related to the same series as special, and less of a reliance on separate groups of employees assigned to manage specific media locations.
