Unwritten community “destroyed” by cuts – deadline

David Zaslav is fond of his motorsport peers.

The president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery recently: “If the linear business is a race car, we have a team of race car drivers.” “Whenever we hear a bang or when we hear a buzz in third gear, we know how to fix it. It’s a business we know all too well,” he said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

He thinks the same goes for unrecorded TV shows, Discovery’s Bread and Butter, which is one of the reasons for that HBO MaxThe unwritten department led by Jennifer O’Connell was disqualified as part of the latest round of layoffs.

However, the unscripted community is upset that he took this particular car off the road.

HBO Max was a success in short order from releasing an original reality series; FBoy Island, the dating show hosted by Nikki Glaser, is widely considered a hit. Although the streaming device doesn’t reveal ratings, it was remarked last August that the show had seen the biggest weekend show of Max’s original reality series, breaking out in a crowded market featuring BSC Universelove is blind And the Love Island.

Selena + Chef, Cooking format hosted by Murder in the building only Star Selena Gomez, was an early pandemic hit from IPC that has now run for four seasons, and legendarya popular competition series from Queer Eye Producer, Scout Productions, has been praised for bringing something new and more diverse to the competition space.

Given how hard it is to launch a new entertainment format, that’s not bad for a service that’s just over two years old.

HBO Max has become one of the best destinations for developing and buying premium unscripted projects with a twist. What many worry is that the newly merged service – a synthesizer of HBO Max and Discovery+, which is due to be combined next summer, won’t be, and that this will largely come down to budgets. “Devastating,” one source told Deadline.

The streaming device has been known to pay nearly $2 million an hour for unscripted series, a figure that’s nearly four times Discovery’s usual ceiling, outside of the high-profile talent-led spin-off project. Producers and agents are concerned that discovery-led teams will be looking for more fiancé 90 days During FBoy Islands. While the former has been a huge hit at a much lower price point, these offerings are very rare to find and can become the sole focus of a channel or service.

However, there is still hope for future seasons FBoy Island, Selena + Chef And the legendary. Deadline understands that no renewal or cancellation decisions have been made on these offers.

There are also still a few standout performances requested by O’Connell and her team active.

Biology Greenlight Project, Giving newcomers the opportunity to make their own feature film, which is in production from Issa Rai, Sheet Creek Star and creator Dan Levy is still preparing a competition series big lunch with Chef’s table Producer Boardwalk Pictures and Jason Momoa are still organizing the rock climbing competition series Boarding.

“These shows are safe as of now,” a source told Deadline. But no projects are completely safe. Everything is evaluated. They’ll look at them all, it’s all finance-driven at the moment, so just because it’s safe today doesn’t mean they don’t take another look and say “maybe a tax write-off would be better”.

Two days after HBO finally confirmed layoffs — such moves, particularly on unscripted programming, had been talked about for more than two months — the cuts were put in greater focus when it emerged that a slew of unwritten programming would be cut from the platform.

This included about last night, Restart tattletales Hosted by Stephen and Aisha Curry, dating show narrated by Natasha Rothwell 12 birthday dateswhich was quickly renewed for a second season after its first aired, and hosted by Yvonne Orji The Dating Format. mom, dad, In addition to documentaries hustle generationoh drama generic + ion And a large number of animated series including hundreds of hours of Sesame Street Specials.

It’s “heartbreaking,” one creator whose show was due to be pulled from service told Deadline. “Two years of my life have passed and many collaborators,” the author said.

Another unfortunate byproduct of these business decisions is the detrimental effect in terms of diversity. Look at the list of pulled offers; About last night, 12 birthday dates and my mom, dad They were all in front of various stars. Much of HBO Max’s unscripted cast was diverse, too: three black women, including Senior Vice President, Rebecca Quinn, original non-fiction programming, and an Asian man.

“It was a very comprehensive package,” one source said. “If you look at all the people who are given up and all the shows are being pulled, it looks like it’s being whitewashed. It’s not part of their equation when they make the decisions, but I think they don’t care.”

How much they care and what they care about will become more clear over the next 12 months.