WarnerMedia is expected to let go of at least 800 staffers at its Warner Brothers and HBO operations as part of a broad restructuring put in place by the unit’s CEO, Jason Kilar.
Warner Brothers is expected to commence layoffs of around 650 people starting Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, while HBO is seen shedding between 150 and 175 staffers. A WarnerMedia spokesman declined to comment.
The layoffs come after Kilar on Friday unveiled a significant reworking of the media company’s operations, ousting the top programming leaders at HBO Max, Robert Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly and rolling all over WarnerMedia’s production operations into a single operation. In their place, Kilar put Warner Brothers chief Ann Sarnoff in charge of developing content for the new streaming service as well as the company’s big entertainment focused basic-cable networks: TNT, TBS and truTV. Andy Forssell, general manager of HBO Max, was put in charge of the new entity’s business operations.
Other media companies have begun to shed staff as they grapple not only with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, but also a rush of consumers from linear television to on-demand streaming video. NBCUniversal, the Comcast-owned media giant, has been enacting staff reductions in recent days. That company has wrestled with economic headwinds spurred by theme-park closures, limits on content production and a downturn in advertising.
More to come…
