Variety: Warner Bros. Discovery Ousts Jane Latman, Nancy Daniels, Matt Butler and Scott Lewers in US Networks Group Restructuring

Story from Variety:

Warner Bros. Discovery has cut another round of prominent leaders, ousting HGTV and Food Network chief Jane Latman and “D-Nets”/”T-Nets” exec Nancy Daniels, both of whom are beloved, longtime legacy Discovery execs.

Latman, who serves as president of home and food content at HGTV and Food Network, is being eliminated and her content programming responsibilities will move under execs Betsy Sanner Ayala (for Food Network) and Loren Ruch (for HGTV).

Daniels, who oversaw content across “D-Nets” Discovery, Animal Planet and Science Channel on the legacy Discovery side and recently took over content for Warner Bros. “T-Nets,” TNT, TBS and truTV, is stepping down and handing the reins over to TLC and Travel Channel exec Howard Lee for the D-Nets, while Jason Sarlanis of ID and HLN crime content will oversee the T-Net side.

Also exiting are Travel Channel’s Matthew Butler and D-Nets/T-Nets’ head of franchise series expansions and tentpole programming Scott Lewers.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s U.S. networks chief Kathleen Finch announced the changes in a memo to staff Friday, the latest in a series of post-merger, cost-cutting moves made at the David Zaslav-run Warner Bros. Discovery.

“Over these last eight months as a merged team we have gained a better understanding of our combined business and organizational structure, and it’s become more clear that we need to make additional adjustments for the future as we evolve to a more streamlined operating model,” Finch wrote. “I am announcing a reorganization today that will ultimately enable our business to run more effectively and collaboratively across all the brands and business functions while maintaining our robust culture of content creation and powerful storytelling. Unfortunately, the changes required will include the elimination of some positions within our content teams and of some long time leaders who have been a big part of the company for many years.”

As a result of this restructure:

• Jane Latman will step down as President, Home & Food Content for HGTV and Food Network.
• Creative oversight for programming content will move to Content Executives Betsy Sanner Ayala (for Food) and Loren Ruch (for HGTV).
• Also as part of the restructure, Nancy Daniels, who most recently had content oversight for the D-Nets and T-Nets, will step down.
• Moving forward, content for the D-Nets – Discovery, Animal Planet and Science Channel – will be overseen by Howard Lee, even as he retains content leadership for TLC and Travel Channel.
• Content oversight for TNT/TBS/Tru will move to Jason Sarlanis, who oversees content at ID and recently added HLN crime content to his remit.
• Matthew Butler, who has most recently overseen content at Travel Channel, also is leaving. During his long tenure with the network.