Gaines ‘Discovery’s journey began in July 2017 when the company announced that it had agreed to acquire Scripps, whose flagship network was HGTV and whose flagship network was Gaines’ Fixer Upper. It was supposed to be a very short trip. Less than two months later, the Gaines announced that they were shutting down Fixer Upper and leaving HGTV. The duo’s strained relationship with Kathleen Finch is widely believed to have played a key role in their decision not to renew their HGTV contracts. Finch ran HGTV when it launched Fixer Upper and oversaw the channel as Gaines stepped down as Chief Programming, Content & Brand Officer for Scripps networks. Warner Bros. Discovery Leadership Structure Set: Biggest Roles for JB Perrette, Kathleen Finch, Bruce Campbell At the time, the Gainees were not in a relationship with Discovery CEO David Zaslav, but they soon developed a relationship. As he learned that Fixer Upper, the biggest success in the network portfolio he was buying, was coming to an end, “It sucked all my air out of my lungs,” he told the WSJ in 2018. Zaslav traveled to the Gaines’ home in Waco, TX, home to the couple’s large lifestyle empire, to attract them back. It was a delicate situation, balancing a complete protagonist in Finch and a superstar talent in Gaines. The duo’s direct return to HGTV was almost out of the question, but Zaslav found a way by elevating Finch to Discovery-Scripps Chief Lifestyle Brands Officer and orchestrating a media consortium between Discovery and the Gaines duo Magnia Network, a linear cable network to replace the DIY channel and a digital name for a pay-per-view service. (Magnolia content is currently running on Discovery +.) “We have this bromance in progress, David and I,” Chip Gaines told the 2019 Discovery shortly after the consortium announcement. Based on an existing relationship, the Gaineses chose their close ally at HGTV during the tenure of Fixer Upper, then HGTV chairman Allison Page, to lead the consortium as chairman. Chip and Joanna Gaines have enjoyed a special position in Discovery ever since, with their executive page reporting directly to Zaslav. (The same is true of the other two recent Discovery consortia, Motor Trend and OWN, which moved under Finch oversight as soon as Oprah Winfrey divested most of its stake in the latter in 2020.) Following the completion of the Discovery-WarnerMedia merger today, Zaslav saw his portfolio expand en masse and took on many new direct reports, including HBO / HBO Max Casey Bloys ‘Warner Bros.’ Toby Emmerich, Channing Dungey of Warner Bros. TV Group and CNN’s Chris Licht. In the new combined universe, the two consortia, Magnolia Network and Motor Trend, no longer have a direct line with Zaslav. In the structure of Warner Bros. Discovery, there are two programmers overseeing the networks / streamers: Bloys and Finch, who became President and Chief Content Officer, US Networks Group, adding WarnerMedia TBS, TNT, truTV, TCM, Boomerang and Cartoon Network / Adult Swim to her portfolio. It seems strange that Bloys, who has focused on high quality scripted content for most of his career, would have overseen the core cable network without a script, while almost every other ad-supported cable network, including several WM having original programming script, go under Finch, whose background is completely scriptless. Aside from the issue of the Gaines-Finch relationship, which according to sources has gotten a little better over the years, there were other factors in the decision to move the Magnolia Network to the HBO / HBO side and report Page to Bloys, who oversees all content. scripted and scripted, for HBO and HBO Max (excluding children and YA fare). HBO Max has been created as a destination for women-centered screenwriters with shows such as And Just Like That…, Flight Attendant and Hacks, which attract similar female demographics to Magnolia’s lifestyle series. HBO Max was trying to expand into this area without a script following the success of the Selena + Chef pandemic series. The Magnolia Network plate would fit that, with the discussion of a possible node in the brand-based HBO Max. Independent producers who had sold works to Magnolia told Deadline that, from the beginning, the network operated on competitive budgets, leading to content that could live on a premium content platform such as HBO Max. (The leadership of Warner Bros. Discovery has not yet revealed plans for how HBO Max and Discovery + will be combined in the future.) In addition, the Gaines were thinking of finally expanding their brand into the script, which is now a real possibility as part of the HBO / HBO Max family, sources said. I hear that marriage was not arranged on both sides. It was in the works for a while, and I hear that HBO / HBO Max was a fan of Magnolia programs like Fixer Upper: Welcome Home and The Lost Kitchen. (Aside from the controversy surrounding the renovation of the Home Work show, Magnolia slate has generally been well received.) While the relocation of the Magnolia Network to the HBO / HBO Max team seems permanent, other cable networks in the combined company may be moving. I hear that, depending on who will be assigned as President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, this person could oversee the heavyweight TNT and TBS sports. This new hire is also expected to head the Motor Trend consortium and this cable channel.
