Tony Cornish.
Tony Cornish, Warner Bros. International Television’s VP sales for Asia-Pacific/South Asia, is leaving at the end of March after 19 years with the company.
Cornish is looking forward to pursuing new opportunities in the TV distribution business, telling IF: “I have a lot of contacts globally.”
As part of a restructure, responsibilities for sales in his territories are being transferred to Jae H Chang, who has been promoted to senior VP for South-East Asian and Korean sales and will relocate from Korea to Singapore.
Earlier another long-serving WB exec, Malcolm Dudley-Smith, stepped down as general manager Asia, when oversight of the territories which reported to him, including China and Japan, shifted to WBIT Distribution president Robert Blair.
“Warner Bros. opens a lot of doors. It hasn’t been hard to sell series like Friends, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory,” Cornish reflects. “The challenge for the studio is to continue to come up with shows like that.”
Cornish’s association with his boss, president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution Jeffrey Schlesinger, dates back to the late 1980s when both worked for Lorimar Telepictures, later taken over by WB.
Schlesinger said: “Tony has been a loyal and valued member of our team for the last 18 years, making many contributions to our division and significantly growing our business in Asia and, more recently, India.
“He is known to everyone as a professional, passionate executive and is very well respected by both his colleagues and clients.”