HBO and HBO Max Reality Show Staff Get ‘Red Wedding’ Treatment

There can’t be two completely different realities, or—as Warner Bros. Discovery understands it—they’ll solely show one slate of actuality TV programming at anyone time. After the corporate introduced they have been merging HBO Max and Discovery+ earlier this month (the latter is rather more identified for its actuality TV content material) inside memos present that the corporate is slicing an enormous portion of the folks behind HBO Max’s actuality programming.

Seventy workers members, or round 14% of the workforce underneath HBO and HBO Max underneath Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys received the ax Monday, primarily based on inside paperwork seen by retailers like Insider. The cuts primarily fell on HBO Max’s actuality present and unscripted groups, however in addition they impacted some employees in casting and acquisitions.

According to the complete inside memo provided by Deadline, Bloys blamed a quickly altering setting and modifications to the corporate’s total enterprise mannequin, which means that they should disband or restructure a number of groups. Teams which are seeing massive cuts embody the non-fiction and live-action household originals alongside its worldwide originals. It additionally means execs like VP of the stay motion workforce Jennifer O’Connell and Jennifer Kim, who dealt with the worldwide originals, are additionally leaving because of this. The govt VPs of casting and content material acquisition—Linda Lowy and Michael Quigley—are additionally reportedly being proven the door.

Rumors of layoffs have stalked the company even earlier than they introduced their mixed providers. Warner Bros. Discovery didn’t instantly reply to Gizmodo’s request for remark about whether or not reduce workers will obtain any compensation or job search assist.

The letter did say some present actuality programming will proceed, however they’ll “will make renewal decisions based on traditional measures of success.” Insider reported primarily based on an unnamed supply acquainted with HBO’s choices that some exhibits like Legendary, FBoy Island, and House of Ho will proceed on. Meanwhile a skeleton crew of HBO Max unscripted workers will stay to ensure these exhibits attain the tip of their life cycles.

Some different execs are being shuffled round, however the firm’s casting processes will now be dealt with by outdoors casting administrators as an alternative of in-house, in keeping with the letter to workers.

Discovery+ already consists of a number of big-name actuality programming such because the Travel Channel, Animal Planet, and TLC, so it appears the extra venerable HBO model doesn’t have want for its personal actuality choices. HBO, for its half, has targeted on quite a lot of actuality exhibits that attraction to completely different cultural demographics, corresponding to House of Ho which targeted on the multibillionaire Ho household out of Houston, Texas.

In the corporate’s August Q2 earnings name, Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav mentioned they wanted to be “flexible toward user preferences.” The newest earnings report confirmed that there have been about 92.1 million subscribers amongst HBO, HBO Max and Discovery+. The firm mentioned it needed to achieve 130 million subscribers globally.

Warner Bros. nonetheless hasn’t introduced the identify of its new mixed service, however they did say they have been exploring an “ad-light” subscription providing to assist “increase monetization.” Knowing that different firms like Disney bumped up the worth of its providers and bundles, together with those with adverts, it’s unlikely that combining HBO with Discovery will result in any value financial savings for patrons.