"Game Of Phones" - - Investors Dial Brokers If Warner Bros. Discovery Is Worth It

Hollywood is buzzing around Warner Bros. Discovery’s upcoming earnings results and plans for a combined streaming service, which can upend its most popular streamer

Hollywood is abuzz with speculation approaching Warner Bros. Discovery’s first quarterly earnings since becoming the nation’s No. 2 entertainment giant on Thursday. Multiple insiders told The Intersect they expect Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav to announce a major restructuring of marquee streaming platforms HBO Max and Discovery+ during its results or soon after.

The move will result in a gutting of HBO Max, significant layoffs for its executives and staff to minimize redundancies with HBO and a combined streaming service with Discovery+ with a harder line separation between the scripted and unscripted content operations.

Zaslav and his surrogates have been quietly telegraphing to top showrunners and talent that HBO content chief Casey Bloys will take a more senior role as the two streaming platforms are combined, according to a top Hollywood manager.

“HBO is very safe. If this was ‘Game of Thrones,’ Casey Bloys won,” a Hollywood agent with knowledge of the plans said.

Bloys may also take responsibility for content overall, including Discovery’s slate of unscripted shows. But other insiders tell us that unscripted will most likely fall under an executive on the Discovery side of the company, which has built its brand with nonfiction content produced for cable channels Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Food Network, HGTV, History and more. Whomever leads the content is expected to report directly to Zaslav.