Warner Bros. Discovery’s Head Of Kids/Young Adults Tom Ascheim Is Out After Just Two Years

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Tom Ascheim (pictured at top) is leaving the newly merged company, which is eliminating his role of president of global kids, young adults, and classic.

Here are the details of Ascheim’s departure:

• Ascheim’s position will not be filled by the company. Instead, Discovery’s Kathleen Finch will manage Warner’s linear networks.
• Ascheim joined Warnermedia in 2020, and oversaw Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Warner Bros. Animation.
• During his time at Warner, he was responsible for overseeing the continuation of major animation IPs including Looney Tunes, Rick and Morty, Craig of the Creek, the Hanna-Barbera library, and animated spinoffs of DC Comics characters and stories, among others.

• Later in his tenure, he also oversaw kids and family programming at HBO Max and the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchises.
• Earlier in his career, Ascheim spent 17 years at Nickelodeon, working his way up to manage its complete portfolio of channels. He then served as chief strategy officer of Sesame Workshop before joining the Disney-owned ABC Family, rebranding it as Freeform.
• Ascheim’s position isn’t the only casualty of the Warnermedia – Discovery merger. TNT, TBS, and TruTV general manager Brett Weitz is also leaving the company. Both he and Ascheim will stay on for a brief transition period. Warner Bros. executive vp of worldwide corporate communications and public affairs Johanna Fuentes has also been let go. Her role will similarly be eliminated.
• Recent departures from Warner Bros. Discovery come as the company’s new leadership is aiming to slash $3 billion in costs by combining the companies and eliminating redundancies.
• In a memo to his staff preceding the announcement, Ascheim said:

Mergers and acquisitions are never easy transitions, and our new leadership team has decided to organize our KYAC team differently, moving studios back under WBTV and the linear networks to Kathleen’s group. While I know this new configuration will enable you all to continue doing extraordinary work, it doesn’t align with the vision I set out to achieve.

Goodbyes are tough, so I’ll keep this short. It’s been an absolute privilege working with each and every one of you over the past two years. It wasn’t always easy, but you persevered when the winds were against us and continued to create treasure troves of content and affinity for our brands that I know will continue to surprise and delight generations to come.