Along with making Warner Bros. Discovery a less-diverse place overall, CEO David Zaslav’s latest bit of corporate restructuring is probably going to gut Cartoon Network and turn it into a shadow of its former self.
For understandable reasons, Warner Bros. Discovery’s move to fire 82 employees and eliminate 43 open positions from its Television division grabbed headlines when news of the decision broke earlier this week. But the implications of the company’s plan to merge Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network Studios may be much larger than what Warner Bros. Television CEO Channing Dungey recently implied in a company-wide internal memo.
According to Dungey’s memo, Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe, Warner Bros. Animation, and Cartoon Network Studios will all continue to exist and be run by Sam Register as part of the company’s “new streamlined structure.” But the latter two animation labels will now share “development and main production teams,” which doesn’t exactly bode well for Cartoon Network, an outfit that’s traditionally been home to more original IP like Craig of the Creek, Victor And Valentino, and Summer Camp Island.
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