Warner Bros. TV Group Chairman Peter Roth To Depart In Early 2021
- by Wayne Friedman , October 19, 2020
Another veteran WarnerMedia executive, Peter Roth, chairman of the Warner Bros. Television Group, will be departing the company, leaving in early 2021. Roth, a 22-year veteran, joined Warner Bros. in March 1999 as president of Warner Bros. Television.
Under his long tenure, he oversaw a massive number of TV shows, with 32 scripted prime-time series producing more than 100 episodes each. That mark historically has been key for big monetization of TV shows -- shows that could then strike lucrative U.S. and international syndication deals.
Among those nearly three dozen shows, the list includes:
“The Big Bang Theory”, “Two and a Half Men”, “The West Wing”, “Gilmore Girls”, “Smallville”, “Gossip Girl”, “Shameless”, “Nip/Tuck”, “The Mentalist”, “Pretty Little Liars”, “Arrow”, “Mom”, “The Closer”, “Fringe”, “The Middle”, “George Lopez”, “The Flash”, “Mike & Molly”, “Person of Interest”, “Supernatural”, “Third Watch”, “The Vampire Diaries” and “One Tree Hill.”
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Ann Sarnoff, chair/chief executive officer, WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group, made the announcement of Roth's departure late last week.
Sarnoff was promoted in August, overseeing all WarnerMedia TV series and motion picture development, production and programming across Warner Bros., HBO, HBO Max, TNT, TBS and TruTV.
August also witnessed other high-level WarnerMedia departures including: Bob Greenblatt, chairman of WarnerMedia Entertainment and Kevin Reilly, chief content officer for HBO Max and president of TNT, TBS and truTV.
Greenblatt had only been on the job since March 2019, with key responsibility in starting up HBO Max, which launched in May. Before WarnerMedia, Greenblatt had the longtime post as chairman of NBC Entertainment.
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Reilly started at Warner Bros. in 2012 as president of TNT and TBS, and chief creative officer of Turner Entertainment.
In December 2018, it was announced that Reilly would be chief creative officer for Turner and WarnerMedia direct-to-consumer.
Keith Cocozza, executive vice president of corporate marketing and communications of WarnerMedia, also left in August.
All these major changes came after Jason Kilar took over as chief executive offer of WarnerMedia in April, replacing John Stankey, who was promoted to chief executive officer at AT&T.
Peter Roth has a stellar reputation and record of success. All the best to you.