Warner Bros. Discovery

[Internationalman]

WBD's second executive restructuring is well underway:

• Kathleen Finch has fired Brett Weitz and Tom Ascheim from the Turner networks and the Family and Kids networks, respectively; as a result, Nancy Daniels will now oversee the Turner entertainment networks (alongside Discovery's US factual and reality channels); whilst the Family and Kids networks and divisions are being reorganized: Ascheim is being replaced by Michael Ouweleen, reporting to Finch and Amy Friedman; whilst Turner Classic Movies will be spun-off from the division, with Pola Changnon reporting directly to Finch. Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios will move to Warner Bros. Television oversight, with Sam Register reporting to Channing Dungey.
  
• Additionally, all Communications/PR, Marketing, and Content Strategy/Scheduling work for the US networks has been centralized, with the new executives, Audrey Adlam, Karen Bronzo and Julie Taylor, overseeing all work from each networks' offices.
  
• Globally, WarnerMedia EMEA's Priya Dogra is staying on her job in the new company, but now taking over Discovery's operations in the UK and the Nordics. James Gibbons will stay on his post as Discovery UK and Nordics director for a while before passing the baton to Dogra, with Gibbons overseeing Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Additionally, Kasia Kieli, who led the CEEMEA operations for Discovery, is moving to Grupa TVN. The biggest news: Whit Richardson, WarnerMedia Latin America CEO, has been fired, and operations in Latin America (including US Hispanic networks) will be led by Discovery Brasil's Fernando Medin; as a result, WarnerMedia's Latin American operation, based in Argentina, will be wound down and most operations will move to Miami and São Paulo.
  
• Anil Jhingan, Discovery Asia's CEO, is being promoted to Global Business Development, reporting to Bruce Campbell. Clement Schwebig takes over South East Asia, Korea and India, Gillian Zhao becomes China WM President and Andrew Georgiou continues as President & Managing Director of Eurosport and GOLFTV. Robert Blair will still lead licensing and Ronald Goes remains EVP and Head of International TV Production leading the International WB Production business.
  
• Finally, all the GMs of HBO Max's international operations have been fired, replaced by Discovery+ staff. Brad Wilson, Johannes Larcher and Luis Durán have been replaced by Michael Bishara, Leah Hooper and Juan Sola; additionally, Jason Monteiro has been hired to oversee HBO Max's expansion into Asia, with South Korea already in the map for launch in the Summer. Bishara will also lead the Digital Studios Group, and Meredith Gertler will lead Content Strategy, Scheduling, and Editorial/Merchandising. Alex Wellen continues to lead the Motor Trend Group.
  

And today, Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to position as a "fifth broadcast network" during its upfront, an upfront laden with a surprise appearance from Jennifer Hudson:

https://deadline.com/2022/05/warner-bros...235026968/

https://deadline.com/2022/05/jennifer-hu...235026985/

Wow. Talk about The WB II.

[MrBiggieSMLZ]

Any news on the Consumer Products arm? (WB Global Brands & Experiences)

[Brekkie]

The CW has always survived on a small but loyal audience and I doubt that will change. What might be interesting moving forward is whether shows ending up with their parent companies streamer by default works against them as suspect international sakes have kept many CW shows afloat as much as their domestic ratings.

[Rdd]

I think it’s done, to be honest, in its present form. It’ll do this last season and whatever emerges in 2023-24 will be a totally different proposition, probably with a different name.

[Brekkie]

A couple of new shows in the Upfronts this week which as you say could continue on streaming. Even if it became a linear avenue for shows already broadcast though I think there is life in it yet, but we'll see.

Was going to start a thread for the Upfronts in general but they're so boring nowadays frankly the streamers deserve to be taking viewers from linear channels. It's almost all spin-offs of existing franchises or revivals, or spin-offs of revivals.

[AxiosBrit67]

First Ever appearance of Warner Bros. Discovery byline on Warner Bros. Television logo taken from Bob Hearts Abishola Season 3.

The byline are most likely appear for theatrical Warner Bros. Pictures films, as we seen from example of this video. Not sure whether the WBP version is real or not but we must wait until June for theatrical appearance of WBP logo.

[Medianext.MX]

More new executive promotions have been confirmed for Warner Bros. Discovery's core executive team:

• Colombian-born Luis Silberwasser has been named Chairman and CEO of WBD's sports properties globally. Silberwasser comes from TelevisaUnivision, where he was leading the US networks division of the Mexican-American company; previously, he was CEO of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. He's also a Discovery veteran, being one of the main executives at Discovery Networks International in the early years of David Zaslav's tenure. Silberwasser will report directly to Zaslav, and Lenny Daniels (Turner Sports), Patrick Crumb (AT&T Sportsnet), Andrew Georgiou (Eurosport/GOLFTV/GCN) and Gustavo Minaker (TNT Sports Latin America) will report directly to Silberwasser.
  
• Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, the former co-CEOs and Managing Directors of MGM Motion Pictures Group, are moving to Warner Bros. Entertainment as co-CEOs and chairpersons, replacing Toby Emmerich, who announced his resignation Wednesday; he will remain on the charge until De Luca and Abdy are released from Amazon as soon as next month. They were appointed as part of a reorganization of the division, which will involve a three-fold strategy similar to Disney's: the core Warner and New Line studios, DC film productions and the Warner Bros. Animation Group. De Luca and Abdy will oversee all three departments.
  
• The regional structures of each international team are done and dusted: Priya Dogra's team of regional managers include Alessandro Araimo, who will lead the Italy and Iberian networks (he comes from Discovery Italia), Antonio Ruiz, who will lead the UK and Ireland networks (he comes from Discovery Spain), Pierre Branco, who will lead France, Benelux and Africa (he comes from Warner France), and Hannes Heyelmann, who will lead the German-speaking networks (he comes from WarnerMedia Europe, where he led programming). Jamie Cooke remains put as lead of operations in the CEEMEA region, and Christina Sulebakk (the former HBO Max Nordic lead) will lead the former Discovery Communications Nordic and Nonstop TV networks across Scandinavia.
  
• In Latin America, Fernando Medin has retained many of WarnerMedia's regional executives, including Tomás Yankelevich as CCO, Pablo Zuccarino as CEO, Kids and Family, Jorge Carey as regional GM for Chile, Patricia Jasín as CEO, Regional Distribution (she comes from TV Azteca in Mexico), Octavio Pedroza as regional manager for Warner Bros., Felipe De Stefani as ad manager and Marcela Doria as account manager. The lone Discovery executive retained is Vera Buzzanelli, who will remain in charge of the factual networks. Most operations will move to Buenos Aires (ruling out a closure of the long-existing WarnerMedia office) and São Paulo.
  
• In the South East Asia region, WBD has decided that India and South Korea would be the core markets of their strategy: HBO India executive Arjun Nohwar will lead the India operation, and Discovery Korea chief Jeeyoung Lee, who has ramped up Discovery's operation in the country thanks to a JV with KT, has been appointed as the GM for South Korea. The wider SEA region will be led by three commissioning directors: Discovery's Magdalene Ew for entertainment, Warner's Chris Ho for Kids and Family, and Lynn Ng in the factual side: regionally, Kurt Rieder, Jae Chang and Vikram Sharma will stay put, whilst Jason Monteiro will lead the roll-out of HBO Max into South Korea and the HBO Max/discovery+ merger in India, as well as being CMO for the region.
  
• In Japan and the AU/NZ region, decentralization is evident: Masami Takahashi will retain oversight of Warner Bros. Japan, whilst Lynn Ng will share her factual duties in the SEA region with content for the Asia/Pacific zone. Discovery New Zealand's existing GM Glen Kyne will oversee all networks in the three markets, based out of Three's HQ in North Auckland, but David McDonald will focus on the Japan channels, based in Tokyo. WBITVP Australia GM Michael Brooks will oversee production studios, whilst Robi Stanton, coming from WarnerMedia, will lead the IP team, and Andrew Brommel will focus on consumer products; all three executives will stay in Sydney.
  
• In Poland, homecoming Katarzyna Kieli is using the most of TVN's staff to lead the new Grupa TVN, but a big situation happened before the changes were put on place: Edward Miszczak, who led TVN into success since its inception, was initially tapped to lead the networks division; however, he has announced he will step down and retire formally before the end of the year, a successor will be named in due course. Other TVN executives are being retained in the long course, including Rafał Ogrodnik (COO and CFO), Dorota Żurkowska-Bytner (CCO and Eurosport GM for Poland), Piotr Tyborowicz (CMO), Michał Samul (VP of News and Current Affairs, who will reorganize the TVN24 newsroom to conform with CNN's internal procedures), Dominika Stępińska-Duch (compliance manager), Maciej Gozdowski (director of AVOD/SVOD offer Player, responsible of merging the service with the local HBO Max), Agnieszka Maciejewska (director of factual), Marcin Bogłowski (marketing strategist) and Krzysztof Kozłowski (CTO). The merged Warner Bros. Discovery offering in Poland will involve a reorganization of the networks and brands, with the Turner and HBO networks joining Grupa TVN, which will become the core networks division; Warner Bros. Poland will be retained as a stand-alone division.
  

[AJ]

Interesting that the Discovery channels in Italy are now branded as Warner Bros. Discovery:


Excuse the photo - screencapping Discovery+ doesn't work sadly. A VPN and active Discovery+ account will show you it in action though!

[Roger Darthwell]

Interesting that the Discovery channels in Italy are now branded as Warner Bros. Discovery:


Excuse the photo - screencapping Discovery+ doesn't work sadly. A VPN and active Discovery+ account will show you it in action though!

Wait they have the Warner Bros. Discovery logo on the air alongside the channel logo?

[tomatoesaway]

Interesting that the Discovery channels in Italy are now branded as Warner Bros. Discovery:


Excuse the photo - screencapping Discovery+ doesn't work sadly. A VPN and active Discovery+ account will show you it in action though!

Wait they have the Warner Bros. Discovery logo on the air alongside the channel logo?

Not only that, the logos are now in colour again

until April 2020:


April 2020 - June 2022:

[Medianext.MX]

Interesting that the Discovery channels in Italy are now branded as Warner Bros. Discovery:


Excuse the photo - screencapping Discovery+ doesn't work sadly. A VPN and active Discovery+ account will show you it in action though!

It works with the former Discovery logo, but with the new logo it doesn't. Just leave the Food Network/Nove/HGTV/Real Time logo there and would look much more polished.

[JetixFann450]

I've kind of noticed that the majority of Discovery's networks (in the UK) have kept their DOGs on throughout ad breaks and I have sneaking suspicion they've likely moved some of the operational output to the former Turner/WarnerMedia operations, since if you look at networks that Warner operate (i.e: their children's channels like Cartoon Network and Boomerang), they also keep their DOGs broadcast throughout ad breaks. I believe it was already reported on that the FTA Discovery channels have done this practice but I checked Discovery HD and it also does keep the DOG on.

[Kunst]

Interesting that the Discovery channels in Italy are now branded as Warner Bros. Discovery:


Excuse the photo - screencapping Discovery+ doesn't work sadly. A VPN and active Discovery+ account will show you it in action though!

It works with the former Discovery logo, but with the new logo it doesn't. Just leave the Food Network/Nove/HGTV/Real Time logo there and would look much more polished.

Indeed, it'd all look much more polished, but they're trying to behave like Mediaset with this one; I think it looks ridiculous.

---

I've kind of noticed that the majority of Discovery's networks (in the UK) have kept their DOGs on throughout ad breaks and I have sneaking suspicion they've likely moved some of the operational output to the former Turner/WarnerMedia operations, since if you look at networks that Warner operate (i.e: their children's channels like Cartoon Network and Boomerang), they also keep their DOGs broadcast throughout ad breaks. I believe it was already reported on that the FTA Discovery channels have done this practice but I checked Discovery HD and it also does keep the DOG on.

Interesting observation, and I also noticed that; Discovery used to keep the DOG during breaks, so this is a "back in time" thing

[RegularCapital]

It works with the former Discovery logo, but with the new logo it doesn't. Just leave the Food Network/Nove/HGTV/Real Time logo there and would look much more polished.

Indeed, it'd all look much more polished, but they're trying to behave like Mediaset with this one; I think it looks ridiculous.

---

I've kind of noticed that the majority of Discovery's networks (in the UK) have kept their DOGs on throughout ad breaks and I have sneaking suspicion they've likely moved some of the operational output to the former Turner/WarnerMedia operations, since if you look at networks that Warner operate (i.e: their children's channels like Cartoon Network and Boomerang), they also keep their DOGs broadcast throughout ad breaks. I believe it was already reported on that the FTA Discovery channels have done this practice but I checked Discovery HD and it also does keep the DOG on.

Interesting observation, and I also noticed that; Discovery used to keep the DOG during breaks, so this is a "back in time" thing

The ex-Turner/WarnerMedia EMEA/International management (Gerhard Zeiler, Priya Dogra etc.) are now mostly running Warner Bros. Discovery's channels in the EMEA region (excluding Poland, but that's mostly because TVN is a sizable entity on its own), its likely the ex-Turner way of managing and operating the channels has now been carried over to the Discovery part of the company.

[Medianext.MX]

And the first effects of the merger are now targeting programming: WBD has axed many original shows of the former WarnerMedia networks, some of which were in production and/or ready to get the airwaves. The cancellations are in line with WBD's policy of decreasing costs and focus on profitable intellectual property. Here's what it stands so far:

• TBS' original comedy Kill The Orange-Faced Bear, a personal Brett Weitz project he made with Romanski and Damon Wayans Jr. (who also stars), has been canceled just one week before it would begin shooting for the rest of the season, the pilot is being shopped to other outlets.
  
• Another TBS show, The Big D, a dating show from the producers of MTV's Are You the One?, and hosted by former Bachelorette contestants JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rogers, has been canned from the schedule just weeks from its July 7 debut.
  
• TNT's most popular drama series, Snowpiercer (based on Bo Joong-ho's movie), has also been canceled, but WBD will let the show end with its soon-to-be-launched fourth season.
  
• The cutbacks have also affected HBO and HBO Max: their ambitious sci-fi drama project with J.J. Abrams, Demimonde, has been thrown away over budget disagreements; additionally, Warner Bros. is trying to renegotiate their multi-million dollar deal with Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, as part of these budget concerns.
  
• Warner Bros. is also dealing with a big problem over the escalating reports of disturbing incidents regarding Ezra Miller, who will star on the first DC Universe movie of the WBD era, The Flash. Zaslav is trying to build the DC Universe and grow in scale to fit a mass-market blockbuster audience, in the style of the MCU, and The Flash, with star cameos from Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, a high budget and Andy Muschietti as director, was supposed to be the lynchpin for it (it has been delayed six times due to the pandemic and seven directorial changes). Deadline is reporting Warner Bros. staff have reached Miller for assistance, but the even increasing revelations are troubling, that Warner Bros. is studying to pull back publicity, replacing Miller's role, or simply relegating the film to a direct-to-streaming release on HBO Max, according to insiders.
  

More to come...