Wednesday, 12 October 2022

Deadline: Warner Bros. Discovery Layoffs: Streaming Marketing Latest Division To Be Hit

Story from Deadline:

The Warner Bros. Discovery layoffs continue.

Deadline understands that Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming Marketing, which promotes its shows across its digital platforms, is the latest division to be hit.

Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed the cuts were happening today but did not disclose how many positions were being eliminated.

It comes after Warner Bros. Television was hit by layoffs yesterday with some 26% of its workforce cut, a total of 125 positions. HBO and HBO Max laid off 14% of staff in August and some 30% of its ad sales operations were affected last month. Other areas such as IT operations are also understood to be affected.

All of this comes as Warner Bros. Discovery attempts to make at least $3B in savings following the merger. Deadline understands that all of the layoffs are expected to be completed before the Thanksgiving holiday.

In terms of Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming Marketing, it’s not entirely clear which sides will be hit the hardest. The company operates the HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services and is in the process of merging them into one standalone service.

JB Perrette, CEO and President, Global Streaming and Interactive, and a key lieutenant of Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav, oversees this area.

On the HBO Max side, Zach Enterlin is EVP Marketing at HBO Max and HBO and the company promoted Pia Chaozon Barlow to EVP Originals Marketing last year to oversee marketing for all Max original programming.

On the Discovery side, former Hulu head of marketing Patrizio “Pato” Spagnoletto joined the company last year as Global Chief Marketing Officer, Discovery Direct-to-Consumer, based in LA and reporting to Perrette.

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