Drew Angerer, Getty
Former Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara
- All of Time Warner's top executives have left the company since AT&T bought it last year.
- They include HBO's Richard Plepler, who unexpectedly resigned last month, and Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara, who stepped down this week following a report that alleged he had a sexual relationship with an actress and promised to help her get roles.
After AT&T bought Time Warner last year for a massive $85 billion - taking control of Time Warner's many assets including Warner Bros. and HBO in a deal that President Trump opposed - AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson sent a memo to employees.
"It's been a long time coming, but well worth the effort: AT&T and Time Warner are now one company," Stephenson told employees in the June memo.
But the acquisition, which formed the new WarnerMedia, has brought with it a new set of complications. All of Time Warner's top executives are out, less than a year after the deal finally closed after a months-long legal battle with the Justice Department, which sued AT&T in November 2017 in an effort to block the merger.
From surprise resignations like HBO's Richard Plepler to a sex scandal that forced Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara to resign this week, Time Warner's leadership has undergone a major, and partially unexpected, shakeup.
Hollywood is buzzing about former 20th Century Fox chairman Stacey Snider as a potential replacement for Tsujihara at Warner Bros., according to The Wrap. Snider is officially out at Fox now that the Disney-Fox merger is complete (it closed on Wednesday).
Other potential candidates include former Disney COO Thomas Staggs; Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley; Gail Berman, the former Paramount president and current CEO of independent production company, The Jackal Group; and former CBS network president Nancy Tellum, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Whoever replaces Tsujihara, they'll be expected to work more closely with HBO, develop content for AT&T's upcoming streaming service, and manage Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies, cable channels that were once under Turner, according to Variety.
In the meantime, Warner Bros. is forming an interim leadership team until a replacement for Tsujihara is chosen, according to Variety. The team will include Warner Bros. motion pictures group chairman Toby Emmerich, Warner Bros. television group president and CCO Peter Roth, and Warner Bros. CFO Kim Williams.
It was expected that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes would leave Time Warner, but he left it behind much faster than anticipated. He was expected to oversee the transition period before leaving, but exited shortly after the deal closed. John Martin, who ran Turner TV for over four years, also quickly departed after the closing.
And that's not all.
Here are all the major leadership changes that have happened at WarnerMedia: