York College of PA to host retired Warner Bros. executive for April 20 talk on future of entertainment

Retired Warner Bros. executive Ron Sanders will discuss his 30-year-career and share his thoughts about the future of the entertainment industry at 7 p.m., April 20, in York College’s Weinstock Lecture Hall, Willman Business Center. The event is open to the public free of charge.

After almost 10 years in sales at consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, Sanders was hired at Warner Bros. in 1991 “to help craft a business plan to launch a revolutionary new product invention in the works: DVD,” he said. “Three decades later, I retired as group president responsible for overseeing global Theatrical Distribution, Home Entertainment, Games, and International.”

Sanders began serving as home entertainment chief in 2005, responsible for the oversight of the global distribution of home entertainment products from Warner Bros. Pictures Group, Warner Bros. Television Group, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. He was also responsible for the studio’s video game publishing business, and helped build Warner Bros. Home Entertainment into the industry’s largest digital distributor of films and TV shows through Video On Demand (media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule) and Electronic Sell Through (media distribution whereby consumers pay a one-time fee to download a media file for storage on a hard drive).

Throughout his career, Sanders and Warner Bros. navigated some of the most tumultuous times in modern entertainment. “From disruptive new technologies, to the business model changes brought on by Netflix and streaming, Hollywood studios are facing an existential crisis over how to grow profitably in the new paradigm,” he said. “I’ll share my thoughts on where entertainment will go in the future to survive and thrive in the new realities of media consumption.”