HBO/HBO Max lays off 70 employees as it closes Streamer's reality unit and restructures other departments

After weeks of speculation, Warner Bros. Discovery is ready to reveal some of the changes coming to HBO Max, ahead of next year's planned combination of the HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming services. And as expected, HBO Max will reduce its reality programming department.

As part of the changes, approximately 14% of the staff under the supervision of HBO/HBO Max Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys will be reduced. This translates to approximately 70 employees (of HBO and HBO Max) who will be laid off as part of this restructuring.

As part of the changes, Sarah Aubrey, the current Head of Original Content at HBO Max, will now focus her oversight on the Max Originals drama slate. As part of the changes, she will now also work in international programming strategy alongside the Warner Bros. team. Discovery International, led by Gerhard Zeiler. Joey Chavez, executive vice president of programming, will continue to report to Aubrey as head of drama Max Originals.

On the HBO Max Comedy side, the department will now report to Amy Gravitt, Head of Comedy and Executive Vice President of Programming for HBO, who will now combine HBO and Max Original Comedy under one umbrella. crew. Suzanna Makkos, who directed the HBO Max comedy, will now report to Gravitt.

As has been intensely speculated, the non-fiction departments of Max Originals (i.e. its reality team) and the original live-action family departments will be restricted in the new arrangement. HBO Max's international, acquisition and casting teams are also impacted by the restructuring. The rest of Bloys' HBO lineup direct reports remain unchanged.

Executives affected include Jennifer O'Connell, HBO Max's executive vice president for non-fiction and live-action family originals; Michael Quigley, Executive Vice President of HBO Max Content Acquisitions; Linda Lowy, executive vice president of casting for HBO Max/T-Nets; and HBO Max International Originals Senior Vice President Jennifer Kim.

In the case of reality, with a combined product that will soon include thousands of hours of reality TV on the discovery side, the company didn't think it made sense for a group of HBO Max to continue to develop and produce the reality while this genre will be well covered. Existing shows like "FBoy Island" will continue to air, and there will always be staff in place to keep the lights on with shows like that.

As for dropping children's content, it's part of the recognition that building this business should be on a much larger scale, and the appetite for this programming on HBO Max doesn't justify such an investment at the moment.

Other relevant departments will include the HBO Max casting group; HBO does not have an in-house cast and prefers executives to have a direct relationship with the casting director. Acquisitions are also down, with the team taking care of the third-party library and HBO paying a bid. With HBO's last paid external deal with "Avatar" in 2023, and the companies moving most of their production in-house, the need for a large group of acquisitions was no longer necessary. There will be one library and pay two and three bids, but most major acquisitions will go through Warner.

And during the downsizing of HBO Max's international team, insiders noted that HBO's domestic drama and comedy teams would work with international producers and networks to develop co-productions like "I May Destroy You"; Aubrey will now be responsible for doing the same for Max.

Then in comedy, the decision was made to combine the HBO and HBO Max teams (while keeping the drama separate) because the feeling, according to those familiar with the structure, was that the sensibility of comedy was much closer to each other.

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