EXCLUSIVE: In addition to Casey Bloys and George Cheeks, the television/streaming structure of the combined Paramount-Warner Bros Discovery, recently named Skydance, would include expanded responsibilities for Channing Dungey who would be taking over the Paramount cable networks, I hear.
As Deadline revealed Friday, Cheeks, Paramount’s Chair of TV Media who currently oversees CBS Studios, is poised to add oversight of Warner Bros Television and Paramount Television Studios, with Dungey, Chairman and CEO, Warner Bros Television Group and US Networks, and PTVS President Matt Thunell both reporting to him alongside CBS Studios President David Stapf.
Continuing the streamlining trend of Skydance putting the combined Paramount and WBD TV studios under Cheeks, film studios under Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg and streamers (HBO Max and Paramount+) under Bloys, the company would be doing the same for the large array of cable networks it will own under Dungey, who also will continue to run the Warner Bros TV Group, sources said.
She would be adding oversight of the Paramount cable nets, which currently report to Cheeks, including the “core four” — MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and BET — as well as VH1, Paramount Network, TV Land, CMT, Pop TV and Logo TV.
That would be in addition to her current cable portfolio as head of US Networks, which features WBD’s linear TV brands including Discovery Channel, Food Network, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, TLC, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, HLN, OWN, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, truTV and Turner Classic Movies. Channing would be reporting to Cheeks on both the studio and cable network side.
Reps for Paramount and Warner Bros TV declined comment.
With the move, Cheeks, whose domain is expanding to include two more TV studios and WBD’s cable portfolio as he takes charge of the combined company’s TV Studios and linear networks, including CBS and cable, is delegating day-to-day oversight of the cable brands to Dungey, a highly respected veteran TV executive who had begun executing her strategy for the WBD cable nets since adding the responsibility to her original job of running the Warner Bros television studio almost two years ago.
The new studio structure reaffirms Paramount CEO David Ellison’s faith in former Skydance TV President Thunell, who is put on the same level with two of the most decorated TV executives in the business who have decades of experience and oversee large portfolios in Dungey and Stapf. Under the setup, Dungey and Thunell, whose units both focus on development and production for streaming, are expected to work closely together.
Skydance is poised to unveil its official executive structure early next week, tied to Paramount’s acquisition of WBD closing Tuesday.
Dungey added oversight of Warner Bros Discovery’s basic cable networks at the end of 2024. She has led the unit through a period of uncertainty as WBD announced a plan to spin off its linear networks before Paramount emerged as a buyer for the entire portfolio. With her at the US Networks helm, Shark Week 2026 garnered its biggest ratings growth in more than a decade, Puppy Bowl delivered its largest audience in eight years, Food Network achieved its first quarter of ratings growth in five years (in Q1 2026), and HGTV posted its strongest year-over-year gains this year in nearly two decades.
Among the programming synergies between the cable networks and WBTV under Dungey are a Bachelor Mansion crossover with HGTV and The Pitt season 1 getting a run on TNT.
The large size of Paramount’s and WBD’s combined cable network footprint was a main antitrust concern in the lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general, with its settlement stipulating that “Paramount and Warner Brothers are required to continue negotiating their cable packages separately.”
Failure to comply would require Skydance to divest several Paramount brands including BET (BET, BET Gospel, BET Her, BET Hip-Hop, BET Jams,and BET Soul), VH1, Comedy Central, Smithsonian, Destination America and Science.
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