(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Sarnoff had never run a major movie studio until being named CEO in June. Her experience was largely in TV: She had led a team at Viacom that started the Noggin kids channel; had been chief operating officer of VH1 and president of BBC Studios Americas; and had chaired the board of BritBox, which streams British TV shows. Sarnoff’s streaming expertise will come in handy as AT&T Inc., the new Warner Bros. parent company, introduces its own streaming service to compete with Netflix Inc. and Walt Disney Co. AT&T’s Warner Media division also includes HBO and CNN, but Warner Bros.’ deep movie library—Casablanca, Wonder Woman, the Harry Potter series, the Looney Tunes franchise, etc.—makes it integral to the success of the service, HBO Max. Sarnoff succeeds Kevin Tsujihara, who left in March amid a sex scandal.
To contact the author of this story: Gerry Smith in New York at gsmith233@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claire Suddath at csuddath@bloomberg.net, Max Chafkin
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