HBO and HBO Max may have had a sweet victory at the Emmy Awards last night, but Warner Bros. Discovery is still feeling the pain. In the midst of the Emmy ceremony, Axios revealed that the company will begin another grueling wave of layoffs starting today — cutting “about 30 percent of the combined ad sales teams” at WarnerMedia and Discovery — confirming an earlier June report from Information on the matter. This news comes off the heels of Warner Bros. Discovery’s continued efforts to cut major costs as a result of its big debt from the merger. Layoffs have been hitting across the company hard as CEO David Zaslav & Co. continue to streamline the two businesses. Hundreds of employees were laid off due to the fumble that was CNN+, and HBO Max was hit with layoffs in August, losing 70 employees while internationally 30 European Originals employees were let go. Meanwhile, other penny-pinching cuts have included canceling (the already filmed) Batgirl, HBO Max quietly removing various movies and television shows, and cutting family and animated programming. Not a great summer, indeed.
