New Delhi, May 17: Amid ongoing layoffs season, Warner Bros. Discovery has reportedly laid off dozens of people from sports division. According to a report of Business Insider, more than 50 employees have been fired by Warner Bros. Discovery in fresh round of layoffs. The firings were announced on May 16.
It appears that WBD Sports will continue to be active when it comes to negotiating for available sports rights. The on-screen programming quality is not expected to suffer as a result of these cuts. Vodafone Layoffs: British Telecom Giant To Slash 11,000 Jobs Over Three Years, CEO Margherita Della Says 'Performance Hasn't Been Good Enough'.
WBD Sports boasts a big portfolio of media rights such as the NBA, MLB, and NHL, multiple sports networks in Turner Sports and Eurosport Networks. Zepz Layoffs: Money Transfer Service To Fire 26% Workforce As Optimization Measure.
The majority of those laid off worked for the division’s Turner Sports. Turner Sports handles broadcasts for major sports leagues such as the NBA and NHL. Warner Bros. Discovery has till now cut over 10% of its workforce through the layoffs, including open positions that will remain unfilled.
WBD sports continues to be impacted by job cuts after late last year WBD head David Zaslav had announced his mission to cut the company’s spending by $3 billion.
This isn’t the first round of layoffs to come to Warner Bros. Discovery. 14% of HBO and HBO Max employees were let go in August 2022, and in October 2022, 26% of personnel in the scripted, unscripted, and animation divisions were let go. This was quickly followed by a round in the Streaming Marketing division.
The move follows a string of cost-cutting measures implemented by several tech and entertainment companies in response to challenging economic conditions.
Earlier this year, Amazon cut jobs in its Amazon Studios and Prime Video division as part of the company's effort to streamline its businesses. The layoffs affected around 100 employees, or about 1 per cent of the division's workforce of 7,000.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 17, 2023 01:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).