Warner Bros. at 100: Studio Was Early Entrant Into TV Production

Michael Schneider
·3 min read
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In the 1950s, the motion picture industry wanted nothing to do with the young medium of television — but Jack Warner soon realized that was a losing battle.

Warner Bros. was among the first to dive into TV production, when ABC approached the studio about acquiring a theatrical film package. But instead of just running films on TV, the result was “Warner Bros. Presents,” an umbrella series that debuted in 1955 and comprised programs based on existing intellectual property including “Casablanca” and “Cheyenne.”

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The success of “Cheyenne” ushered the era of the Western to television, as Warner Bros. (initially under Warner’s son-in-law, William T. Orr) brought a movie studio approach to the small screen. “There’s a spirit of independence and innovation that’s so much a part of the legacy of the studio,” says Warner Bros. TV chairman Channing Dungey. Other early Warner Bros. TV hits included “Maverick” and crime dramas such as “Hawaiian Eye” and “77 Sunset Strip.” That legacy continued with “The F.B.I.” and in the 1970s, sitcoms like “Alice” and “Welcome Back, Kotter,” the Lynda Carter-led genre hit “Wonder Woman,” actioner “The Dukes of Hazzard” and the landmark miniseries “Roots.”

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In the 1980s came sitcoms like “Growing Pains” and “Murphy Brown.” The studio’s TV fortunes were lifted following the acquisition of Lorimar, which brought hits like “Full House” and its spinoffs into the old. The 1990s saw a string of Must-See TV hits produced for NBC, most notably smash hits “Friends” and “ER” and the Emmy-magnet “The West Wing.”

Dungey remembers being on the lot back then as an exec on the features side: “The shows my friends and I were all watching were being made here,” she says. “The opportunity for me to come back and be a part of that incredible tradition and legacy is a dream come true.”

By the 1990s and early 2000s, Warner Bros. TV was the industry’s largest supplier of content to prime- time, including “The West Wing,” “Gilmore Girls” and “Third Watch” and unscripted fare like “The Bachelor.” The studio became home to two of the most prolific producers in TV history: Chuck Lorre, who created a string of sitcom smashes (including “Two and a Half Men” and “The Big Bang Theory”), and Greg Berlanti, who turned the DC “Arrow”-verse into a valuable franchise for both Warner Bros. TV and The CW.

Much of that growth took place under Peter Roth, who ran the TV studio for 22 years before handing the baton to Dungey in 2021. Her tenure has coincided with a shift in ownership under Warner Bros. Discovery and the launch of HBO Max, now the studio’s key buyer.

“I think we have somewhere between 35 and 40 projects at HBO Max when you look at scripted, un- scripted and animation,” Dungey says. “Our plan is for that to continue. But we sell everywhere — broadcast, basic cable, premium cable, streaming.” Warner Bros. TV’s current output includes Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary.”

“We are fortunate to have an incredibly rich library of IP to draw from,” Dungey says. “It’s my goal to continue to break barriers in storytelling. I want to create content that reflects the breadth and depth of our audience. We want to continue to find and uplift new and underserved creative voices. And to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

(Pictured: “Welcome Back, Kotter” and “Abbott Elementary”)

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