Warner Bros Discovery Begins Acquisitions As First Step Towards Cutting Ad Sales Force By Up To 30%

Warner Bros. Discovery, two months after closing the $ 43 billion merger, took the first step towards downsizing its global workforce by launching voluntary acquisitions in the US advertising sales division.

Over time, redundant sales will have up to 30 percent fewer employees, an expected move that reflects an overlapping business combination, a famous celebrity told Deadline. Information He had the first report of job cuts.

According to the source, the timing of the reduction is not entirely clear, but the plans include voluntary acquisition, followed by involuntary measures, including dismissal.

Sales is an area believed to have duplicate positions on the organic chart given the expanded portfolio. Others include marketing and distribution as well as administrative departments such as commercial affairs and accounting.

The newly merged company promised Wall Street savings of at least $ 3 billion following a merger that saw Discovery join the spin-off of AT&T, the former parent company of WarnerMedia. United Nations Chief Executive Officer and CFO David Zaslav Gunnar Wiedenfels has given clear messages in recent months of his intention to identify areas where costs can be cut and operations simplified. Warner and Discovery are working together on a wide variety of cable networks both in the United States and internationally.

Warner Bros. Discovery has approximately 3,000 sales people, half of them in the United States.

Employees whose tenure dates back to Time Warner’s earlier AT&T days worked with their third corporate boss for four years. The $ 85 billion deal with AT&T Time Warner has resulted in approximately 1,500 employees, including longtime, high-ranking employees like former HBO CEO Richard Plpler and Turner Sports CEO David Levy. The signings have also seen waves coming from the doors of Turner Veterinians, Warner Bros. and HBO. It’s too early to tell the nature of the reduction, but the $ 3 billion savings target is well above the previous mix.

Some in Discovery’s ranks also underwent similar merger simplifications in 2018 after the company acquired Scripps Networks Interactive. John Steinlauf, who now heads WBD’s sales department, was one of the few former Scripps executives to remain in leadership roles at Discovery after the merger.

As the news was released after the close of trading, it is not yet known how the stock market will react. While it has been a tough spring for nearly all media and tech stocks, recently investors seem particularly immune to the allure of WBD, whose shares have lost nearly half of their value since the close in April. They ended the trading day at $ 13.98, below the fraction.