Warner Bros. Discovery jettisons more key executives as company shake-up continues

The shake-up at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) continues.

On Friday, the media giant revealed prominent Discovery executives will be exiting the company — the latest in a slew of restructuring efforts as CEO David Zaslav doubles down on streamlining the debt-ridden business.

Among the departures will be Nancy Daniels, who oversaw channels at Discovery, TNT, and TBS, along with Jane Latman, who led the company's HGTV and Food Network divisions. Matthew Butler, who most recently oversaw content at the Travel Channel, will also be departing, along with Scott Lewers, who ran franchise series expansions and tentpole programming.

These exits come as others have left the company in recent months, including former DC Film president Walter Hamada. Hamada's exit marked the fifth motion picture studio executive to depart the company since Zaslav's takeover. Soon after, Karen Jones, who served as executive vice president and head of communications at HBO/HBO Max, also announced her departure.

"Over these last eight months as a merged team we have gained a better understanding of our combined business and organizational structure, and it’s become more clear that we need to make additional adjustments for the future as we evolve to a more streamlined operating model," U.S. Networks Group's Kathleen Finch wrote in a memo to employees.

"I am announcing a reorganization today that will ultimately enable our business to run more effectively and collaboratively across all the brands and business functions while maintaining our robust culture of content creation and powerful storytelling," the memo continued.

Warner Bros. Discovery shares have dropped more than 50% since the start of the year amid various restructuring charges, macroeconomic challenges, further subscriber losses in linear television, and a slowdown in advertising.

Friday's news comes after the company reportedly scrapped Patty Jenkins' "Wonder Woman 3" as questions swirl around its DC Studios film strategy — headed by filmmaker James Gunn and producer Peter Safran.

Gunn responded to the news on Twitter, writing in part: "Building the next ten years of story takes time & we're still just beginning."

Zaslav previously revealed Gunn and Safran are close to finalizing a "bible" when it comes to the future of the DC universe.

"Part of our strategy is drive the hell out of DC," the executive revealed in an interview with RBC Capital Markets analyst Kutgun Maral last month. "It's one of the biggest opportunities at this company."

Zaslav added Gunn and Safran will "focus on our strategic advantage: The great content that we have that everyone in the world knows, and focus on telling those stories."

Part of that strategic vision will include exclusive theatrical windows, rather than the direct-to-streaming offerings — something the CEO is vehemently against.

"There's an ecosystem of economic return when you open something in the theaters," Zaslav said. "That idea of direct-to-streaming was just a way to try and drive subscribers in order to drive share price. We're not doing that."

Alexandra is a Senior Entertainment and Media Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alliecanal8193 and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com

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