Discovery lifer James Gibbons is taking over Warner Bros Discovery’s (WBD) newly united Asia-Pacific business, replacing Clement Schwebig, who is shifting to Europe as head of Western Europe and Africa.

This afternoon’s note from international head Gerhard Zeiler was widely expected as the WBD post-merger re-structure continues.

Zeiler’s new structure unites the region previously split between Schwebig as head of India, Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Korea (a region dubbed INSEAK), and Gibbons, who was in charge of Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Schwebig, who has managed INSEAK since 2020, will now have responsibility for GSA, France, Benelux and Africa, which will be brought together into a single Western Europe & Africa market cluster.

Based in Singapore since earlier this year, Gibbons was appointed president and managing director of Japan, Australia and New Zealand in April 2022.

Ronald Goes will continue to oversee WBD’s international production unit, WBITVP, which includes 21 production companies in 13 countries in EMEA and APAC.

Ragnhild Thorbech maintains responsibility for scripted acquisitions and will become part of the global streaming content leadership team. She reports to Meredith Gertler, EVP, global content strategy, planning and analysis.

Qaisar Rafique will continue to lead commercial strategy for EMEA and APAC.

Louis Goldstein will continue to lead business operations for international and expand his coordination responsibility for international home entertainment to also encompass content licensing.

Schwebig’s shift to Europe comes in the wake of leadership changes on the continent, including the exit of EMEA president and managing director, Priya Dogra, in August. WBD said at the time her role would not be replaced.

Robert Blair, Hannes Heyelmann and Pierre Branco have also exited.

The APAC re-org is unlikely to impact plans to roll out the Max streaming service in parts of Asia next year.

Max streaming plans in Asia, led by Jason Monteiro, have not been made public.

J.B. Perrette, WBD CEO and president of global streaming and games, who was in Singapore last week, is said to be pushing for a 2024 launch despite a super-lean slate of originals expected to drive take up in Southeast Asia.

Today’s announcement comes a week after Perrette described the past decade as one of “great oversupply and great underpricing”.

“We are in a period of rationalisation and the great re-aggregation is well underway,” he told delegates gathered in Bali for Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) annual APOS conference.

“The aggregation is both structural, with consolidation… and then there’s re-aggregation in the re-bundling,” he said.

“Pricing rationalisation is starting again… Unfortunately for the last decade, the industry went on a content oversupply bender,” he said.

Perrette predicted three to five big global players in the next five to 10 years, in addition to “local champions in individual markets”.

In a conversation with MPA executive director Vivek Couto, Perrette said he was “very optimistic” that streaming could get to decent margins in the next few years.

“While the business is challenged today… our measure of success are different to some others in the industry,” he said, adding: “We have profitability, we have share, and we have scale”.
 
Related stories:

▶ 4 September 2023: WBD restructure; Monteiro moves “fully” into streaming role; theatrical/marketing int’l realignment cascades through Asia Pacific

▶ 1 September 2023: Gillian Zhao exits WBD in latest reorg; no word yet on theatrical realignment in the rest of Asia

▶ 22 April 2022: Warner Bros Discovery’s new Asia-Pacific leadership; Zeiler picks evenly from WarnerMedia, Discovery