TVN owner lays off 1,000 people. “It takes courage”

Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of TVN, the Max platform and the Warner Bros. film studio, has announced another wave of layoffs among its employees. Nearly 1,000 people will lose their jobs, and the changes will also affect VOD platforms.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s management is not very popular in Hollywood, and the decision to mass layoffs is unlikely to improve that. Shortly after revealing CEO David Zaslav’s high 2023 earnings, which were higher than the previous year, the company decided to lay off nearly a thousand employees. As Deadline reports, the finance department will be the most affected.

Warner Bros. Discovery Mass Layoffs

This is not the first wave of layoffs at Warner Bros. Discovery. The company also saw job cuts a year earlier, and many employees lost their jobs as it prepared for the merger, which was finalized in 2022. The first employees were informed of the layoffs on July 16, and others will speak to their superiors in the coming days.

The layoffs will primarily affect employees in the production, business affairs and finance departments. Variety reports that fewer than 10 people from the Max platform team have lost their jobs. A few days earlier, CNN, also owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, eliminated 100 positions.

Late last year, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav spoke at a conference hosted by The New York Times, citing that the earlier wave of layoffs had taken “courage.” Zaslav said the company had to be restructured for the future and there could be no “sacred cows.” He also spoke of the tough decisions that were necessary to prepare the company for the future.

A tough year for the entertainment industry

The entire entertainment industry is going through a tough time right now. In the past seven months, layoffs have hit giants like Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Roku, NBCUniversal, Blumhouse, and Lionsgate. Paramount Global is also planning significant job cuts ahead of its merger with Skydance Media.