WOKE WAR WIN: Warner Bros Gets DEI Recruiting Program Under Control!

After shutting down their paid internship writing and directing pipeline programs, some of their functions will be picked up by their company-wide DEI program, but not all. Staff isn't being rehired, and the programs are completely cut out of the WBTV division. "Stage 13" is completely shutdown and is not being restarted.

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Warner Bros. Discovery’s Karen Horne on Workshop Reversal: “This Was Always Our Plan”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/warner-bros-discovery-workshops-return-1235240345/

WOKE WAR WIN: Warner Bros Gets DEI Recruiting Program Under Control!

Fewer than 24 hours after the shuttering of Warner Bros. Television Group’s long-running writers and directors workshops prompted outcry and lament from industry creatives — and a challenge from the Directors Guild of America — Warner Bros. Discovery announced that the workshops weren’t dead after all: They were simply being relocated from the TV division to the company’s corporate DEI team.

WBD senior vp Karen Horne, now U.S. lead for DEI under the team’s recent restructuring, says that she had made clear to leadership that her goal always was to unify the company’s pipeline programs under the DEI division (the WBD Access portfolio already includes development programs across categories including animation, comedy, games, news and sports, postproduction and unscripted) and that she would ensure there was a home for any entry-level TV writing and directing workshops as well.

Horne joined then-WarnerMedia in 2020 to oversee pipeline programs, having done the same during a longtime stint at NBCUniversal and, before that, at Nickelodeon and Disney. At NBCU, she launched such programs as Female Forward and Emerging Directors, which set new standards for industry pipeline programs by guaranteeing participants an episodic job. She spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about what the former WBTV workshops will look like under new management.

When can we expect the workshops to come back?

We’re going to try to stick as close as possible with the schedule the current workshops have, but I’m not going to commit to saying it’s the exact same schedule. Productions now go year-round, and while the current schedule benefited broadcast, we don’t have to make sure on the writing or directing side that that’s the case. Additionally, the program will expand under our supervision. It will be equally as robust but arguably broader because we will also work with our TNet partners, HBO Max — for which a lot of the Warner Bros. Television Group produces programming anyway. I want to make sure that we are not fighting a timeline just to get it done but really building a platform that is bigger and more robust.

Will the workshop changes potentially include expanding beyond episodic scripted?

For the directing program, absolutely. My team was already looking to develop an unscripted directing program. We also had been talking with the Discovery teams for a showrunner program on the scripted side [Editor’s note: WBD Access launched a showrunner program for mid- to senior-level writers in April] and we’d like to build something like that in unscripted as well. We really want to work with Discovery to expand even better.

Are you retaining the staff from the workshops?

The WBTV team was two people and they will not join my team, I don’t have the head count to have them, but in addition to myself, Grace Moss now leads Pipeline Programs — she worked with me at NBC on Female Forward. We have now at Pipeline a bigger team. We have more programs but in the restructure we will make sure we have more people.

Does the new “specific DEI focus” mean that the workshops will now be open only to applicants from historically excluded backgrounds?

We look at submissions blindly. When we read a script, no one knows whose material we’re reading — same thing when we’re viewing material. We always open submissions to everyone. We do cast our nets wide enough to make sure we are really targeting those historically underrepresented groups. We also like to partner with diverse organizations like NALIP and NAACP to help champion the talent they have. We will put notices out to them specifically, but they are open to everyone.

Now that the corporate DEI team, instead of WBTV, is assuming the costs of the workshops, will there be any change to their budget?

I don’t know what their costs were. I don’t know if they’ll be the same. As we redevelop these programs to be bigger and broader, they may be more expensive — but because I have a great knowledge of running these programs, they may be cheaper.