Warner Bros. Discovery Starts New Round Of Layoffs

EXCLUSIVE : The fragile state of the film and television business continues with another set of layoffs hitting the industry.

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Deadline understands that Warner Bros. Discovery is making more cuts this week as part of another round of cost-cutting measures.

We hear that pink slips have started being distributed across the company including at Max and in some areas of production, business affairs and finance.

It comes a year after a round of layoffs that led to the departure of a number of network executives in its cable business.

Insiders say that this round is significantly smaller than previous cuts and it will impact small pockets of people in a variety of business areas. People are being informed today and through the week and we’ll update you as we hear more.

This comes a week after around 100 people were laid off at Warner Bros. Discovery-owned news network CNN last week. CNN Worldwide CEO Mark Thompson said that about 2.9% of its 3,500 employee workforce was impacted.

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However, Warner Bros. Discovery is very much not alone this time when it comes to layoffs. Paramount is expected to make more layoffs as part of its cost-cutting measures ahead of the close of its acquisition by David Ellison’s Skydance, a move that comes after it already cut around 800 people earlier this year. Disney is also expected to make more cuts over the coming months.

This year, companies that made layoffs include Amazon , Netflix , NBCUniversal , YouTube , Roku , Sony , Marvel , Fifth Season , Lionsgate , Starz , Chernin Entertainment , Blumhouse , and most talent agencies including CAA and UTA , leading to one veteran TV executive to call it “a full-scale depression for the entertainment industry”.

At the end of last year, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav addressed previous cuts. “I remember our first big layoff. It was brutal. But, Warner Bros. and Time Warner and even Discovery, these are companies that had never really been restructured for the future. And so, we decided that we have to have courage; we have to figure out how to restructure these businesses for the future. We said no sacred cows,” he told Andrew Ross Sorkin during a Q&A at The New York Times’ DealBook conference.

Earlier today, one media analyst suggested that WBD needed to do something to address the fact that the stock has declined 70% since the merger. BofA Global Research analyst Jessica Reif Erlich said “the current composition as a consolidated public company is not working” and “all options need to be on the table”.

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