Logo

Variety

Warner Bros. Bracing for Layoffs, as Work Force May Be Cut by More Than 1,000 Jobs; One Unit Is Expected to Be Hit Hardest

Sep 18, 2014  •  Post A Comment

Warner Bros. Entertainment is gearing up for a hefty layoff as the studio seeks to cut costs. Variety reports that the company will cut as many as 1,000 jobs, with the Home Entertainment unit to be hit hardest.

That would represent more than 10% of the studio’s 9,000-person workforce, the story notes. The cuts are expected to be made in late October or early November. The studio had been widely expected to cut jobs, after Warner CEO Kevin Tsujihara warned in a Sept. 4 memo that layoffs were coming.

“Senior managers are currently assessing their businesses to come up with ways to trim overhead. Only at the end of that process will an exact reduction figure be known. It could be somewhat lower than the current numbers being speculated, but cuts are expected to be substantial,” the story notes.

Movie and TV production units will be the least impacted by the cuts, the story reports.

“There is no head count target or percentage reduction target,” said the studio’s executive vice president of corporate communications, Dee Dee Myers. “This is a budget issue, not a head count issue.”

warner bros-logo

4 Comments

  1. And now we watch WB sail off into the sunset; it will never be the powerhouse it once was… You can cut your way to a fatter bottom line (for a while) but you can’t cut your way to success.

    • And, until that day, we can expect fewer and lower quality (but likely not any cheaper) DVDs and Blu-ray discs… and probably CDs as well.

  2. His means fewer Blu-Rays, fewer features on he ones they do bother to release and worse yet, they likely won’t even bother to continue their efforts to make a good portion of their back catalog available via MoD.

    It’s truly sad that there is so much high-quality Warner Bros. product I would LIKE to buy but I simply don’t have the ability to.

    One example: for years, a small but dedicated group of fans has been pestering WB to make further seasons of “Knots Landing” available via MoD, as it’s no longer seen in syndication anywhere. To date they’ve refused to do so, when all they’ve needed to do is simply encode the tapes they already have available as syndication masters, something a few interns could accomplish in a few weeks if they haven’t already converted the masters to digital.

    Another example: film critics have been crying for years that smaller, high-quality films like “Local Hero” barely given a release on DVD have never been issued on Blu-ray, despite HD copies being generated for pay TV networks such as HDNet Movies. Those could instantly be made available via MoD on Blu, but WB has refused to do that as well.

    Money just left lying on the table given up to bootleggers selling copies recorded off air years ago or to Pirate Bay torrents.

  3. “Th-th-th-That’s all folks!”

Your Comment

Email (will not be published)