“We’re going to put 2022 behind us and focus on the future,” said Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer of Warner Bros.
Discovery’s U.S. Networks Group. Speaking candidly during a Deadline-moderated keynote at the Realscreen conference in Austin, Texas, Finch opened up about the challenges and plans at the newly merged company. “Going through a merger — and this was a humungous merger — is tough, it’s tough on the content creators, partners, staff, we’re a little ‘rear view mirroring it’ and we’re thrilled about what 2023 is,” she said. “Just now is when we’re able to put our strategy in place; last year was based on bringing two giant entities together.” Finch talked about programming plans for its networks including the Turner networks, Discovery channels as well as the likes of HGTV and Food Network.
She also discussed the recent restructure that led to the departure of Nancy Daniels and Jane Latman as well as the tax write-offs that impacted shows such as The Big D, Snowpiercer and Chad.
She also talked about the overall state of the unscripted business; the challenges of budgets and deal terms; Netflix’s emergence into the unscripted space, diversity, the controversy around Dana White’s Power Slap series, and, of course, reality buzz MILF Manor, a show that seems to have come straight from a 30 Rock skit. Personnel Changes The D-nets are now overseen by Howard Lee, Jason Sarlanis runs TNT, TBS and truTV as well as true-crime programming for ID and now HLN, Betsy Sanner Ayala runs Food, and Loren Ruch oversees HGTV following the departure of Daniels and Latman as well as a number of other executives earlier last year. “I have got the dream team, the absolute dream team heading up all these networks.
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