WarnerMedia’s corporate restructuring continued on Friday with the news that key executives Bob Greenblatt, Kevin Reilly, and Keith Cocozza will be departing the company.
Greenblatt served as chairman of WarnerMedia entertainment, while Reilly was the chief content officer for the company’ HBO Max streaming service, which launched in late May. Reilly also served as president of TNT, TBS, and truTV, while Cocozza was the executive vice president of corporate marketing and communications.
Deadline reported that the trio will be exiting the company while Warner Bros. chief Ann Sarnoff takes oversight of all network, film, TV studio, and streaming assets, effectively making her head of all content for the company. The changes will also include expanded responsibilities for HBO’s president of programming, Casey Bloys, who will handle original content for HBO Max, TNT, TBS, and truTV. Andy Forssell, HBO Max’s general manager, will now lead an operating business unit for the platform.
The executive shakeups were made by new WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, who took the post four months ago.
“I want to thank Bob and Kevin for getting us to this point with the integration of HBO and the legacy Turner Networks and launch of HBO Max. It has been such an impressive sequence of events, and we are so much better for it,” Kilar said in an internal letter obtained by Deadline. “I also owe a tremendous amount of gratitude and thanks to Keith, for not only helping me navigate these last few months at the company – and with the media – but more importantly for his 19 years at the company through its evolution. I have never met a kinder, more collaborative executive in my career. I can’t wait to see how each of these leaders change the world in the years to come.”
WarnerMedia continues to change up its executive leadership since AT&T acquired Time Warner for an estimated $85 million in 2018. One of the first and most notable executive departures was former HBO chairman and CEO Richard Plepler, who greenlit shows such as “Game of Thrones” and “Veep.” Plepler recently inked a five-year deal with Apple TV+.
Other former executives who left HBO after the AT&T acquisition include Simon Sutton, HBO’s former president and chief revenue officer, Bernadette Aulestia, the network’s former head of global distribution, and Nancy Lesser, its former head of entertainment PR. Sutton, Aulestia, and Lesser worked at HBO for 14, 22, and 35 years, respectively.
