Entertainment
Warner Bros. Television Group Chairman and CEO Channing Dungey and DC Studios Co-CEO Peter Safran to Keynote Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit
Variety has announced Warner Bros. Television Group chairman and CEO Channing Dungey and DC Studios co-chairman and co-CEO Peter Safran will be featured at its annual Entertainment and Technology Summit presented by City National Bank on Sept. 26 in Los Angeles.
Dungey, recently named to soon assume oversight of WBD’s U.S. Network Business in addition to overseeing Warner Bros. Television Group, will speak to her vision for TV storytelling that broadly connects with audiences, such as her team’s live-action scripted series “Ted Lasso,” “Abbott Elementary,” the world of “The Big Bang Theory,” and “Presumed Innocent,” unscripted favorites “The Bachelor” and “The Voice,” and animated hits “Batman: Caped Crusader” and “Harley Quinn,” among others.
Safran will talk about his leadership of the recently formed DC Studios, where he and his fellow Co-Chair & Co-CEO, acclaimed writer/director James Gunn, are leading efforts to realize the power and wonder of the DC Universe across film, TV, animation and gaming to under a single banner. Up first are eagerly awaited launches “Joker: Folie à Deux” in theaters and “The Penguin” for HBO/Max.
AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron will also join the summit for a conversation discussing the importance of the theatrical experience and how cinematic technological innovations are helping drive audiences back to theaters.
Alisa Bowen, president of Disney+; Annie Luo, EVP of global partnerships and strategic development at Peacock; Charlie Collier, president of media at Roku; Pierluigi Gazzolo, CEO of ViX, Inc. and TelevisaUnivision, Inc; and Frank Boulben, chief revenue officer of Verizon will join the “Perfecting the Business of Streaming” panel discussion.
Erin Oremland, general manager at AgilLink and SVP and head of ecosystem delivery at City National Bank will be featured in the conversation “Advancing Financial Operations in an Uncertain Media Marketplace.”
Charlotte Maines, director, EDS ads & monetization at Fire TV, Rachel Delphin, CMO of Twitch and Nick Pepper, head of Wholly Owned Content, Amazon MGM Studios, will address how the streaming media landscape can serve as a conduit for diversifying audience reach, while also building brand equity and customer trust.
Tim O’Brien, chief revenue officer at Scopely, will talk about how mega-deals and mergers have transformed both traditional entertainment and the video game industry.
Michael Wise, CTO, Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Abi Ashok, VP of Travel Incubator at Expedia Group and Katja Reitemeyer, director of data Science and AI for media and entertainment at Nvidia have joined the “Generative AI – Succeeding With the Genie Out of the Bottle” panel discussion, alongside Eli Collins, VP Deep Mind at Google; Phil Wiser, CTO of Paramount Global; and Victoria Bousis, director and creative technologist.
Lamorne Morris, Emmy-nominated actor and host, “The Mess Around” & “The Lamorning After,” has been added to the “Podcast All-Stars” panel, also featuring Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of “Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson”; Jenna Ushkowitz, host of “And That’s What You REALLY Missed”; Iliza Shlesinger, host of “Ask Iliza Anything”; and Whitney Cummings, host of “Good For You.”
For the first time, City National Bank will present the cocktail party following the summit hosted on a private rooftop for attendees and speakers to network and enjoy appetizers together.
City National Bank is the presenting partner of the summit. Amazon Ads joins as premier partner; Scopely and Expedia are official partners; Samsung Ads, AMC Networks and Vizio are supporting partners of the event. Tickets are limited, register here: https://events.variety.com/enttech