Warner Bros Discovery Leadership Structure Is Set: Bigger Roles For JB Perrette, Kathleen Finch, Bruce Campbell

Ahead of tomorrow’s expected close of the $43 billion WarnerMedia-Discovery merger, the executive leadership structure of the new company has been set.

David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery since 2007, will hold the same title at the combined entity. He has installed J-B Perrette to oversee streaming (a role he had at Discovery), while veteran unscripted programming exec Kathleen Finch will supervise all linear networks. Toby Emmerich, Casey Bloys and Channing Dungey, heads of Warner Bros Pictures, HBO and Warner Bros TV, respectively are all remaining in place. Bruce Campbell, the top distribution exec at Discovery (a crucial function given the billions in carriage fees and complex streaming deals in his purview) has been given a similar job at the new company.

The elevation of Finch, a Scripps Networks Interactive veteran and former network news producer who joined Discovery after the company bought Scripps in 2018, had been widely anticipated. She headed the ranks of a deep roster of unscripted and reality execs at Discovery, who will likely exert considerable influence in the new entity.

Deadline reported a month ago that the senior brain trust of Discovery would fill the new company’s senior management ranks, making today’s official announcement no real surprise. Many members of Zaslav’s senior team, including Perrette, also worked alongside him at NBC.

The appointments follow an exodus earlier this week of several senior-level WarnerMedia execs, including CEO Jason Kilar, streaming chief Andy Forssell and studio and networks chairman Ann Sarnoff. While the idea of a Kilar equivalent in the new structure has long been abandoned, there are questions about whether a new exec will assume a role similar to Sarnoffs, looking after both the movie and TV studios. Zaslav has indicated he intends to be hands-on, though he has never overseen such vast real estate in the scripted realm.

AT&T, which acquired Time Warner for $85 billion in 2018 and rebranded it WarnerMedia, decided to exit the entertainment business just three years later. In May 2021, AT&T CEO John Stankey and Zaslav stunned the industry by revealing their stealthily negotiated proposed combination.

Cost savings are a prevailing factor in all determinations on the new company’s exec structure. Discovery has pledged to extract $3 billion in savings from the new entity and will face pressure from Wall Street to reduce its debt load, which will be in the tens of billions.

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