Full Name
Michele Barney
Job Title
President, Affiliate Distribution
Company
Discovery, Inc.
Bio

Michele Barney serves as President, Affiliate Distribution for Warner Bros. Discovery. In this role, Barney leads account management for all of Warner Bros. Discovery’s national affiliate partners and global platforms. She also leads affiliate marketing for the company’s linear networks, such as HBO, Discovery Channel, Food Network, TNT, TLC, TBS and more. Her team is responsible for generating revenue, subscribers, activations and engagement for WBD’s suite of brands across streaming, digital and linear. 

Barney most recently served as President, Affiliate Distribution at Discovery, Inc. In that role, Barney was responsible for the strategic oversight and distribution of Discovery’s network portfolio and content in the U.S. and Canada, managing Discovery’s carriage with cable, satellite, telco and digital distributors. Prior to joining Discovery, Barney was Senior Vice President of Content and Programming for AT&T. In that role, she led strategy and negotiation for multi-billion-dollar content distribution agreements across AT&T’s traditional video, OTT and mobile platforms for linear and on-demand content, apps, TV Everywhere, SVOD providers and premium movie services.  

Barney is a seasoned industry veteran with 20 years of TV experience, having worked at DIRECTV from 2001 to 2015 in leadership roles in content legal and programming.  She played critical roles in the launches of DIRECTV NOW, DIRECTV Stream (fka AT&T TV), WatchTV, TV Everywhere, 4K/HDR, video-on-demand, high definition and interactive capabilities.  Before DIRECTV, Barney was an Associate at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles. 

Barney holds a B.S., magna cum laude, from USC and a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley School of Law.

Michele Barney