TOTAL PANIC WARNER BROS DID NOT Reopen The Woke TV Writers' Workshop! It's All Gone!

WBTV workshops not only "developed emerging talent," but also helped ease their path to paid work in Hollywood. WBTV covered up to 28 weeks’ salary for each graduate writer who got staff on a show (about $150,000 per writer) and covered graduate directors’ first two episode pay.

Eliminating director and writer workshops will save WBD about $2 million in workshop graduate salaries alone.

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Insiders Cast Doubt on Warner Bros.’ Plans for TV Writers’ Workshop
https://missthinkup.com/tv/insiders-cast-doubt-on-warner-bros-plans-for-tv-writers-workshop/

TOTAL PANIC Warner Brothers DID NOT Reopen The Woke TV Writers' Workshops! It's All Gone!

Insiders Cast Doubt on Warner Bros.’ Plans for TV Writers’ Workshop
October 17, 2022 by Miss Think Up
Warner Bros. Discovery abruptly eliminated, then reinstated, its long-standing training program for television writers.
WBD said the plan “from the beginning” was to move the workshop and its sister program for directors into the DEI division.
But insiders said the timing and tone of WBD’s announcements point to a hasty reversal fueled by backlash.
Talk about a week of whiplash.

The entertainment industry was in an uproar last Tuesday over the sudden closing of Warner Bros.’ Television Writers Workshop, a respected 40-year institution that has launched the careers of hundreds of Hollywood writers, as well as its sister program for emerging television directors.

Outcry from the creative community following the announcement by WBTV parent Warner Bros. Discovery was followed Wednesday by a fierce pushback from the Directors Guild of America, which claimed the “important” director’s workshop was “contract-bound.” work group of the DGA”. (There is no such agreement with the Writers Guild.)

Within half an hour, WBD reversed its public statement: The workshops would continue, but would be moved from the television studio, where they have been housed for decades, to the company’s diversity and inclusion unit. Additionally, WBD Senior Vice President Karen Horne, who heads DEI in the US, told the Hollywood Reporter: “This was always our plan.”

But multiple WBD insiders, industry insiders, and workshop alumni told Insider that they believe, and the timing of the decisions and tone of communications demonstrate, that there was no immediate intention to relocate the shows. The company’s change in attitude, the sources said, came only after backlash and concerns from unions pushed WBD to cut costs.

A source close to WBD thought attributed the sequence of events to a communication error.

“I felt like a family member died, when I found out” about the plan to shut down the shows, said a writer’s workshop alumnus, who now works on a broadcast network series and whose wife also graduated from the show. “It was a real punch in the stomach.”

A shocking announcement, an instant reaction and a quick reversal.
The sequence of events that followed the WBD announcements generated skepticism in Hollywood. On Tuesday, WBTV Group Chairman Channing Dungey sent a memo to employees sharing news of some 82 layoffs in the division, as well as shop closures, surprising even company insiders by announcing that WBTV “will be closing “both without a comparable replacement.

“While we will no longer have these formalized programs, we remain committed to developing and mentoring emerging talent and preparing them for television careers,” Dungey said. The memo from him also announced the closure of the Stage 13 short-form production unit.

In his interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Horne said he “made it clear to leadership that his goal was always to unify the company’s pipeline programs under the DEI division.” But if that was the ultimate goal, there was no indication that was the initial plan, regardless of WBD’s official position, industry insiders familiar with the chain of events said.

WBD had not communicated any of its moves, neither the closing of the shows nor any plans to keep them operating in a different way, to the writers’ and directors’ guilds. The DGA first contacted the studio only after news of the cancellation broke, according to a source familiar with the industry’s thinking. “We have been in contact with WB,” the DGA statement said in part, “and have received their commitment to work with us to remedy this important matter.”

WGA West had also not heard from WBTV prior to the announcement, a separate source said.