According to Deadline, Channing Dungey (Queen of the Dammed, Distant Melody) has been part of Netflix for couple of years but has had a major part in series such as Bridgerton, Emily in Paris and Inventing Anna as well as helping to bring over Game of Thrones creators David Benioff (3 Body Problem, 25th Hour) and D.B. Weiss (Metal Lords, Confederated). As the current chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group, Dungey is likely to join Netflix after it struck an $ 83 billion deal to acquire the studio and streaming assets of Warner Bros. Discovery.
As per Deadline, once the deal closes Dungey’s division will be the one most closely watched. This is because Netflix has never produced any series for a rival streaming or broadcasting service. According to Co-CEO Ted Sarandos, Netflix will start. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Sarandos paid tribute to Dungey and her team.
“The television studio … produces and licenses content to third parties. We were never in that business. We are now,” he said via Deadline. “When you we get under the hood, that’s a really healthy business. It’s not as big as ours, and that’s why we haven’t really focused that much on doing it. The growth opportunity on our core business has been greater. But now in this transaction, we own that business, and Channing and that group do a phenomenal job, and we want them to continue to do that phenomenal job.”
According to Deadline, Warner Bros. Television Group is responsible for different types of series, which include Apple’s Ted Lasso and Shrinking, NBC’s The Voice and Brilliant Minds, CBS’ Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, The CW’s All American, ABC’s Abbott Elementary and The Bachelor franchise and Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. This does not include all the programs on HBO and HBO Max, it has also generated different television programs for Netflix, including Untamed, Running Point, The Sandman and Leanne.