Channing Dungey Confirmed As Chairman Of Warner Bros. Television Group

[Autbot_Benz]

It’s official. Channing Dungey has been named Chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group.

Dungey succeeds Peter Roth, who revealed on Friday that he was leaving the studio after 22 years.

The move comes ten days after Deadline revealed Dungey had stepped down as VP Original Content and head of drama at Netflix after 20 months at the streamer to pursue another opportunity.

It also follows the surprise departure of WBTV President Susan Rovner, who was widely considered Roth’s heir apparent, to become Chairman, Entertainment Content for NBCUniversal’s TV & streaming unit.

Dungey, who will join the studio in early 2021, will report to Ann Sarnoff, Chair and CEO, WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group.


Brett Paul, who is President of Warner Bros. Television, and worked closely with Rovner, will report to Dungey.

It is the latest move in a series of executive musical chairs over the last few months that included the departure of the exit last month of Netflix’s head of content Cindy Holland, whom Dungey previously reported to at the streamer, and the appointment of Bela Bajaria as Global Head of TV.

During her nearly two years at Netflix, Dungey oversaw a large portion of the digital platform’s drama slate including Octavia Spencer’s Self Made: Inspired By The Life of Madam CJ Walker, Hilary Swank’s Away, and two upcoming series from Shonda Rhimes: romantic period drama Bridgerton, and a drama inspired by the life of conwoman Anna Delvey. She was also involved in the acquisition of Darren Starr’s series Emily In Paris, which recently launched.

She was also responsible for helping to bring Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to Netflix, championing overall deals for talent including Regina King, Mara Brock Akil, Bill Prady, Michael Green, and Gina Rodriguez and working with high-profile showrunners and talent including Shonda Rhimes, Jenji Kohan, Kenya Barris, Steven DeKnight, Marti Noxon, as well as Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.

Prior to Netflix, Dungey was President of ABC Entertainment, becoming the first Black executive to run one of the Big Four networks’ entertainment divisions. There, she shepherded series including The Good Doctor and the return of American Idol and was responsible for cancelling its top series, Roseanne, following star Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet.

Previously, she ran ABC’s drama development, overseeing the development of such shows as Shondaland’s Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder, and Once Upon a Time.

Dungey joined the network’s drama development department in June 2009. Prior to that, she oversaw drama programming for ABC Studios, where her slate included Shondaland’s Private Practice for ABC and CBS’ long-running drama Criminal Minds, among others.

Her career in entertainment has spanned both television and film. She partnered with Pamela Post and formed Dexterity Pictures, a production partnership focused on making both studio and independent films, as well as developing TV series. She also served as president of Material, a film production company with a first-look deal at Warner Bros. Prior to that, she served for five years as a Warner Bros production executive, helping to develop and supervise a diverse range of commercially successful, critically acclaimed films.

“This is a homecoming of sorts for Channing, who was a production executive at Warner Bros. early in her career, and we’re excited to have her rejoin the Studio,” said Sarnoff. “Channing is one of the most talented, visionary, creative and respected executives working in television today. She has impeccable taste, a breadth of experience covering all platforms and genres, incredible relationships across the creative community and a keen sense of what’s next and how best to get it to audiences. She’s a great choice to lead the Television Group as it continues to grow its production operations for HBO Max, while also maintaining its standing as the industry’s leading independent supplier of programming to all outlets.”

“The Warner Bros. Television Group is the recognized industry leader in content creation and a true destination for talent based on its ability to produce across all genres and for all outlets,” said Dungey. “I’m thrilled to be joining the company at such a pivotal time in its history and look forward to working with my new colleagues at Warner Bros. and across the Studios and Networks Group to build on the incredible work of my predecessor, Peter Roth. This is such an electric time in our industry, and we have so much opportunity available to us between Warner Bros.’ core businesses and HBO Max, I cannot wait to dive in.”

https://deadline.com/2020/10/channin...an-1234599494/

[Cure]

Oh, wow! I didn't know Channing was a unisex name.

[Andrew NDB]

[Leo656]

I was just gonna say I'd never seen or heard of any of her projects, until I got to this part....

Originally Posted by Autbot_Benz

was responsible for cancelling its top series, Roseanne, following star Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet.

...And I'm like "Oof, yeah, f*ck this bitch." That situation was handled HORRIBLY all the way around. Roseanne got stupid on Twitter, but what she said wasn't even that bad and they had no right to kick her off of the show she created, and then turn around and keep on profiting from it besides (they didn't so much "cancel" the show as much as they kicked her off and renamed it "The Connors", which sucks and nobody cares about it). That was some bullsh*t.

If she's the one who laid down the pen stroke on that call, then she can jam that pen up her ass.

[Wildcat]

This topic seems unnecessary.

The Roseanne thing is strange though. I never really watched the series before its revival (just occasional reruns) but every time I see promos for it all I think is it’s so weird that the main character can be written out of a show.

It’d be be like Seinfeld coming back and Jerry being written out or Everybody Loves Raymond without Ray Romano.

[Powder]

This can't be good.

[ZariusTwo]

I saw the first line and thought Channing Tatum had taken over

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I was just gonna say I'd never seen or heard of any of her projects, until I got to this part....



...And I'm like "Oof, yeah, f*ck this bitch." That situation was handled HORRIBLY all the way around. Roseanne got stupid on Twitter, but what she said wasn't even that bad and they had no right to kick her off of the show she created, and then turn around and keep on profiting from it besides (they didn't so much "cancel" the show as much as they kicked her off and renamed it "The Connors", which sucks and nobody cares about it). That was some bullsh*t.

If she's the one who laid down the pen stroke on that call, then she can jam that pen up her ass.

Roseanne didn't get stupid on Twitter she got racist on Twitter. To many people that alone deserved a reprimand but this was a pattern of behavior that included harassing underage victims of school shootings and promoting qanon ********.

If this was one isolated incident I'm sure they would have had her issue an apology and move on but clearly everyone high up looked at the situation and thought that this was going to happen again and again unless they put a stop to this. Remember it Roseanne getting super political in the exact opposite direction that sunk the show last time. Really they should have considered her erratic state of mind before they pitched a revival but I expect they thought that she'd be so grateful for a career revival she'd behave herself this time around.

Roseanne (the show) belongs to the network and they can do whatever they want with it. Morally? Yeah it's Roseanne Barr's creation but there are other writers on the show (most who were ready to walk over the situation) and other actors who make the show popular (all of which condemned her) you could make the case that these people shouldn't lose out because Roseanne is crazy.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I dunno, she managed to get a lot of big names over to Netflix.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[sdp]

AT&T doesn't know what they're doing so if this doesn't work I can see them removing her and changing her.

As far as the Roseanne thing I think it's amusing, you had this great show that went on a weird direction for the final seasons, retcons everything, makes a great new season, title character gets replaced and isn't immediately cancelled and also goes on a weird direction. Just the synopsis is like amazing:

In a tragic turn of events, Roseanne has suddenly died following knee surgery. Three weeks later, the family learns she died of an opioid overdose,

I can't say that it sucks because roseanne was always all kinds of weird when it came to plot so in a way it seems fitting and a bit sad. I'd have to see it.

[Leo656]

Punishment didn't fit the crime. Wasn't like she was dropping N-bombs all over the place. The network could have fined her, had her make a big public apology, and then made a big show of her taking some kind of "sensitivity training" or something. That would have been a much better resolution than taking her life's work away from her, buying her out or no.

It's just more Hollywood hypocrisy. She's not as famous, but Sarah Silverman made tons of racist jokes, Holocaust jokes, etc. back when she was doing stand-up and she only got MORE popular and famous after that, and it's not like nobody knew about it. Like yeah, "She's Jewish so she can say that", sure, that didn't hurt, and neither did her big tits so I'm sure that helped in her case, but MOST of the time if you say something onstage like "The difference between killing 6 million Jews and 60 million Jews, is that 60 million is unforgivable!", they don't turn right around and give you your own TV show. And it's not like this was stuff she said in front of nobody; "Jesus Is Magic" was her biggest album/production and it's exactly what got her famous. She said a bunch of horrific - albeit very funny - sh*t, called it "dark comedy", and she only got MORE rich and famous and successful. Magazines were tripping over themselves to call her "edgy" and jack her off, and then she got her own show on Comedy Central where she said a bunch more things that would get most people "cancelled" and not paid.

And I happen to like Sarah Silverman's work, generally speaking, I'm just saying. In one case, a white woman makes an entire career and gets rich and famous out of being racist and off-color, and in another case a white woman loses her entire career over a couple of bad tweets.

What it really all comes down to if you compare the two situations, is that Sarah Silverman is hot and votes Democrat, THUS anything she says is absolutely okay and "just jokes". Roseanne is old, fat, and votes Republican, therefore "she's an irredeemable monster".

Wasn't handled right at all. And I really don't like the whole "You can say any dumb sh*t you want and it's okay, as long as you vote Democrat then all's forgiven!" way Hollywood operates.