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EXCLUSIVE: As Deadline announced in May, Warner Bros. Discovery is experiencing another round of television layoffs, beginning today.
The layoffs, which insiders have described as “bags of refinement” rather than wholesale cuts, are taking place at the cable television business, which includes the Discovery-branded cable networks and Turner networks.
Warner Bros. Discovery operates cable networks such as Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel and Animal Planet, as well as the former Scripps networks such as Food Network and HGTV. It also operates the former Turner-branded networks such as TNT, TBS, and truTV.
The department is led by US Networks Group Chair and Chief Content Officer Kathleen Finch.
The biggest deviation is Amy Introcaso-Daviswho is EVP, Development and Production, Factual Programming, Discovery.
Amy Introcaso-Davis (Discovery)
Introcaso-Davis oversaw all aspects of actual Discovery development, including Discovery+ and development and production for Animal Planet. She joined the company in January 2020, initially to oversee programming for Animal Planet from E!, where she was EVP, development and production.
At Discovery, she led the team responsible for shows like Crikey! of Animal Planet is responsible. They are the Irwins, The Zoo: San Diego and Surviving Joe Exotic, and the Puppy Bowl. Discovery+ originals she has directed include Pig Royalty, Carol Baskins Cage Fight, Shark Academy and The Mighty Underdogs, she has also developed Love in the Jungle, Million Dollar Wheels and co-developed Naked and Afraid of Love.
At E! she oversaw the production of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Total Bellas and developed Very Cavallari. Prior to that, she was EVP Programming and Development at GSN and held positions at Oxygen Media and Bravo.
Food Network is also affected by the cuts.
Retiring executives include: Gretchen Eisele, Carolyn Gross And Neil Padover. All three are program and development directors for Food Network.
Eisele has overseen shows like The Messy History of American Foods. Prior to Food, she held a similar position at Science Channel, overseeing shows like Space Launch Live. She joined from Nat Geo where she was an executive producer on Explorer.
Gross has been responsible for developing new formats and talent, as well as producing series, pilots and specials for the Food Network, Cooking Channel and Discovery+. She has directed series such as Chopped, Holiday Baking Championship, Outrageous Pumpkins, and Man Fire Food. Prior to Food Network, she worked in the non-scripted television department at WME in New York.
Padover, meanwhile, worked on shows like Kids Baking Championship, Well Done with Sebastian Maniscalo, and All-Star Best Thing I Ever Ate.
Other executives affected by the layoffs include the HGTV exec Paul Lewis. He was the programming and development manager at the Property Brothers: Forever Home network. Lewis has been with Discovery and the former Scripps Networks for ten years and has worked at several networks including DIY and Great American Country.
Elsewhere, andrew lessner, Also affected is senior manager for development and production of tentpoles, events and live at Discovery, TBS, TNT, TruTV, Science and Animal Planet. Among other things, he was responsible for series such as “Mysteries of the Abandoned” and “Black Files Declassified”.
On the TLC site, Danielle Ostroske-D’Ingillo, Senior Director, Development at TLC, is also leaving the company. Ostroske-D’Ingillo has been with the company since 2013 and has been involved with series such as 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.
In February, during a keynote hosted by Deadline at the Realscreen conference in Austin, Texas, Finch was candid about the challenges of the companies’ merger, which she described as “tough.”
“When you do a fusion, you kind of figure out how many layers we need. How many staff do we need? I don’t really run these networks as 30 individual teams, they’re grouped into clusters, they’re put together with leaders at the top who really live that content,” she said. “That’s not to say the people we’ve lost aren’t great people, they are, we just had to do a restructure with fewer people doing the work.