Warner TV chief Channing Dungey poised to add MTV and Nickelodeon to TNT in merged Skydance

The executive map of the merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery is being filled in one block at a time, and the newest block is the most crowded one: cable. Channing Dungey, the Warner Bros. Television chief who already runs WBD’s U.S. channels from TNT to Food Network, is poised to absorb Paramount’s cable portfolio as well, which would put Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, MTV and Adult Swim, Comedy Central and TBS under a single executive.

As Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva first reported, Dungey would take over the Paramount networks led by the “core four” of MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET, along with VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop TV and Logo. They would join the WBD lineup she has overseen for almost two years: TBS, TNT, truTV, Turner Classic Movies, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, OWN, HLN, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Skydance, the name David Ellison has given the combined company, has not confirmed the plan.

The move fits the hierarchy taking shape above her. Dungey would report to George Cheeks, Paramount’s chair of TV media, on both the studio and the cable side. Cheeks is in line to oversee all three of the merged company’s television studios, Warner Bros. Television, CBS Studios and Paramount Television Studios, as well as its linear networks, CBS included. The Paramount channels Dungey would inherit currently report to him, and passing her their day-to-day running would let Cheeks hand off the cable brands as his own remit expands. The same pattern runs through the rest of the chart: Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg over the film studios, HBO’s Casey Bloys over HBO Max and Paramount+.

Dungey brings one of the deepest résumés in American television to the expanded job. She ran ABC Entertainment from 2016 to 2018, the first Black executive to lead the entertainment division of a major U.S. broadcast network, then moved to Netflix before taking over Warner Bros. Television in 2021. According to Variety, her studio produces more than 80 original series for over 20 platforms, from Ted Lasso and Abbott Elementary to The Pitt, Shrinking and The Voice, with the Harry Potter series still to come. The division has landed 13 new series orders and 13 renewals this year, and The Pitt won six Emmys, including its second for outstanding drama.

The deal is due to close on Tuesday, when the combined company formally becomes Skydance, and a final executive structure was not expected before this week. One constraint will outlast any org chart: under the settlement with 12 state attorneys general that cleared the merger, Paramount and Warner Bros. must keep negotiating their cable packages separately.

So the two channel groups will still walk into those negotiations as separate companies. They would simply walk out answering to the same executive.

Tags: David Ellison, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Hannah Waddingham, executive-move, Tanya Reynolds, Katherine LaNasa, Skydance

Warner TV chief Channing Dungey poised to add MTV and Nickelodeon to TNT in merged Skydance

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