Over the past 24 hours Warner Bros. Discovery has laid off bunch of people, shedding off the topmost layers of skin and splitting wide open the epidermis uncovering their cable networks. Beating over the ribs of Deadline with a big ole mallet, huge names from Adult Swim, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery, TCM, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel, Animal Planet, former Turner networks TNT, TBS, and truTV, and former Scripps networks HGTV and the Food Network have all summoned their former employees to start hunting for a new job.
Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, US Networks runs the division.
Drawn as “pockets of refinement,” the layoffs are described by insiders as more of a trim off the old bangs instead of wholesale cuts.
The most high-profile of the exodus is EVP, Development and Production, Factual Programming, Discovery Amy Introcaso-Davis.
Introcaso-Davis wore all the rings of Discovery’s factual development, including Discovery+, and production and development for Animal Planet. Initially she joined Discovery in January 2020 as the quarterback of programming for Animal Planet, from E!, where she also totaled up the numbers as EVP, Development and Production.
At Discovery, she flexed her claws overseeing the team responsible for Animal Planet shows such as The Zoo: San Diego, Surviving Joe Exotic, Crikey! It’s the Irwins, and the Puppy Bowl. Who doesn’t love puppies? She also harpooned the Discovery+ originals Shark Academy, The Mighty Underdogs, Baskin’s Cage Fight (hopefully something to do with ice cream and that Spider-Man cage fighting scene), Pig Royalty, Carol, developed Million Dollar Wheels and Love in the Jungle, and co-developed Naked and Afraid of Love.
Under the exclamation mark of E!, Introcaso-Davis maintained production of Total Bellas and Keeping Up With The Kardashians while designing Very Cavallari. Before this she hit the big red button as EVP Programming and Development, GSN and trickled into roles at both Bravo and Oxygen Media.
Who got chopped from the Food Network? Executives Neil Padover, Carolyn Gross, and Gretchen Eisele, all three formally cruising as Directors of Programming & Development.
Padover sliced up series All-Star Best Thing I Ever Ate, Well Done with Sebastian Maniscalo, and Kids Baking Championship.
Gross slid over the butter overseeing development of new formats, talent, series production, specials, and pilots for not only the Food Network but for Discovery+ and the Cooking Channel. She’s been the hand to pour the seasoning over Man Fire Food, Holiday Baking Championship, Outrageous Pumpkins, and Chopped. Before cleansing her palate with the Food Network, she mixed the potatoes all the way from New York in the Non-Scripted Television Department at WME.
Eisele dished it out overseeing shows like The Messy History of American Foods. Before she set the table at the Food Network, she floated a similar satellite at the Science Channel, fostering such shows as Space Launch Live. She was spliced from Nat Geo, pawing it up as executive producer on Explorer.
Next up is HGTV executive Paul Lewis whose real estate popped as programming and development executive at Property Brothers: Forever Home network. For ten years Lewis poured the cement over networks like Great American Country and DIY.
Senior Manager of Development and Production Events, Lives, and Tentpoles, at Discovery, truTV, TNT, TBS, Science Channel, and Animal Planet Andrew Lessner has also been trampled. He was classified as responsible for Black Files Declassified and Mysteries of the Abandoned.
Senior Vice President Caroline Perez, Development and Production at Discovery has bled for the company since 2009, previously put on her white coat at the Science Channel and oversaw Secrets of the Lost Ark and Blowing Up History.
From TLC, Senior Director Danielle Ostroske-D’Ingillo, Development at TLC, rooted in the company since 2013, has shook things up with such series as 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.
Cyclones OWN and the Travel Channel have taken up Angela Freeman and Havva Eisenbaum, Vice President, Programming & Development into the storm.
Under the waves of Adult Swim, Producer and senior editor Ned Hastings, who has drunk from the company well for over 20 years and is most known for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Ollie Green, VP Animation, and executive producer of Tuca & Bertie and Rick and Morty, plus another eight or nine long-standing employees will also be sucked dry of Warner Bros. Discovery.
After lighting it up at TCM for more than 25 years, EVP and GM Pola Changnon will be replaced by the President of Adult Swim, Boomerang, Discovery Family, and Cartoon Network, Michael Ouweleen, who previously chaired TCM pre-merger style.
VP of brand creative and marketing Dextor Fedor, SVP, Programming and Content Strategy Charlie Tabesh, Vice President of Studio Production, Anne Wilson, and VP, Enterprises & Strategic Partnerships as well as Turner Classic Movies Festival Director, Genevieve McGillicuddy will also be lost to the flames.
“When you go through a merger, you do sort of figure out how many layers we need. How much staff do we need? I’m not really running these networks as 30 individual teams, they’re clustered together, they’re put together with leaders at the top who really live and breathe that content,” said Finch. “That’s not to say that the people that we lost aren’t amazing people, they are, we just had to have a restructure that has less people doing the jobs.”