Rick Meril has been promoted to the lead sales position, executive VP and general sales manager, of Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution, under recently named division president Ken Werner.
Meril, who has served as senior VP of WBDTD since joining the company in 1999, will be responsible for overseeing the distribution sales activities for the company’s first-run and off-network properties, including product from Warner Bros. Television, Telepictures Productions and Warner Horizon Television, as well as film packages from the Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment libraries.
He will also oversee the day-to-day operations of WBDTD’s administration, research, marketing, creative services, programming and new business development teams.
Werner credited Meril for “an extremely successful” off-net sales effort licensing the first cycle of Two and Half Men, which is expected to garner $2.5 million-3 million per episode.
Prior to joining Warner Bros., Meril spent 16 years at Cox Broadcasting, most recently as executive VP and general sales manager of TV syndication for the company’s former Rysher Television unit. He initially joined Cox as a national spot sales account executive with its TeleRep division.
He also was local sales manager at Belo’s WFAA-TV Dallas-Ft. Worth) and a spot TV account executive at the rep firm Petry. Meril began his career in media sales at WINS-AM New York as an account executive.
