Warner Says Shake-Up Won’t Hurt TV Sales

Warner Bros. Television executives said Tuesday that they don’t think the studio’s effort to sell new shows for next year will be negatively affected by a shake-up of its management team engineered near the peak of that sales process.

Despite producing some of television’s most popular and profitable series, Warner Bros. on Monday said it had reached outside the studio to appoint Peter Roth president of its Warner Bros. Television unit, responsible for prime-time programs created through the Time Warner unit.

Roth, ousted in November as entertainment chief of the Fox television network, replaces Tony Jonas, a Warner Bros. veteran who has led the production arm since 1995. Jonas has yet to decide whether to accept an offer to remain at the studio under an independent producing arrangement.

Warner Bros. ranks as the most prolific supplier of prime-time TV programs, including the highest-rated series on television, “ER” and “Friends.” In fact, the TV operation has at times carried the studio’s slumping movie division during the last year.

Still, sources say Warner Bros. executives were disappointed by a shortage of new hits in recent seasons. Moreover, management of the WB network--an increasingly successful enterprise the studio operates with Tribune Co.--has pressed for a change, pointing out publicly that few of the network’s most popular shows came from its sister studio.

Warner Bros. Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Barry Meyer downplayed the idea that internal bickering prompted the decision, but he did acknowledge that the studio was forced to act at a less than propitious time because rumors about the switch were so rampant that “it became impossible to operate.”

Meyer said the timing was “awkward” and that Warner Bros. wanted to wait until after the process of developing new series prototypes for next season is concluded in May. Roth will officially begin March 1.