Turner Fires a Fourth of Hanna-Barbera Staff

Turner Broadcasting System, just one day after its takeover of Hanna-Barbera Productions, laid off 115 of the 457 full-time employees at the Universal City-based animation studio.

The cable company will integrate the operations of Hanna-Barbera into various parts of its organization, Turner said. The functions of many of the fired Hanna-Barbera employees duplicated jobs that Turner employees in Atlanta and New York were performing, a spokesman explained.

Layoffs occurred in nearly all areas at Hanna-Barbera but were concentrated in the distribution, business affairs, accounting, creative services and public relations departments.

Hanna-Barbera, producer of such cartoon shows as “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons,” will be split into two divisions.

The production division will fall under Turner Entertainment Networks, which encompasses the cable networks TNT and TBS. The merchandising, licensing and home-video distribution side of Hanna-Barbera will report to TBS’ syndication and licensing division.

David Kirschner, who had been chief executive of Hanna-Barbera Productions, becomes president of the production division and reports to Scott Sassa, president of Turner Entertainment.

TBS paid $320 million to purchase Hanna-Barbera from Great American Communications six weeks ago. Turner has said it may use the animation studio’s library of 4,000 half-hour films to help launch a cartoon and children-oriented cable TV channel.