Channing Dungey, the former President of ABC Entertainment, is joining Netflix as a vice president of original content.
Dungey, who surprisingly left ABC in November, became the first African American woman to head a major television network in 2016 when she took the helm of the Disney-owned network. She’s known for her work with Shonda Rhimes on Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.
She’s also most recently known for swiftly canceling the network’s popular Roseanne reboot earlier this year after the show’s star, Roseanne Barr, made a racist remark on Twitter about Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama White House adviser.
At Netflix, Dungey will be involved in setting the strategy for original content. She said in a statement she’s excited about “the forward-thinking, risk-taking and creative culture at Netflix.” In her two and a half years leading ABC, Dungey tried to lead a turn-around at the network, which is ranked fourth in terms of total viewers.
Dungey is expected to work with her former ABC collaborators including Shonda Rhimes, black-ish creator Kenya Barris, and Higher Ground Productions as well as the Obamas’ production company at Netflix. Dungey is expected to start in February.
Netflix’s original content grew by 88% in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017 in a move to limit the amount of content the streaming platform licenses from other producers.
Still, it appears that most viewers spend the majority of their time on Netflix watching licensed content. But that doesn’t seem to have discouraged Netflix, which will reportedly release 90 original feature-length films in 2019 with budgets of up to $200 million as the company sets its sights on the Oscars.
