Home Entertainment
March 22, 2006
Jim Noonan Promoted To Senior Vice President, Worldwide Strategic Promotions & Communications, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group
(March 22, 2006 – Burbank, CA) – Highly respected communications and new media executive Jim Noonan has been promoted to the newly created corporate position of Senior Vice President, Worldwide Strategic Promotions & Communications, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, it was announced today by Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, to whom he will report.
Noonan spent the majority of his career as a high-profile communications executive before transitioning to the new media space in 2001 to head Warner Bros. Online and Wireless as Senior Vice President & General Manager of those divisions. In his new post, he will be charged with creating strategic cross-platform, cross-divisional promotions for product distributed via the WBHEG’s businesses (including Warner Home Video, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment). In addition, Noonan will work with Warner Bros. Entertainment’s Corporate Communications team in overseeing WBHEG’s internal and external consumer and business communications.
“We are fortunate to have someone in this role with Jim’s unique credentials across both the communications and new media spaces,” said Tsujihara. “The mandate of our group is to maximize the opportunities for cross promotion across multiple platforms and distribution windows, as well as across our own business units. And, as a new business unit, it’s crucial that we effectively and strategically communicate our messages to the press, our clients, consumers, retailers and adjacent industries. We’ll look to Jim to lead our efforts in both of these important areas.”
During his five years at the helm of Warner Bros. Online, Noonan initiated Warner Bros.’ wireless efforts and oversaw the establishment of contractual relationships with major wireless carriers around the world, giving Warner Bros. access to more than 80 percent of mobile users worldwide. The online group designed and maintained a number of Warner Bros. brand sites including Harry Potter, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and, most recently, Hanna-Barbera, offering original broadband content, gaming and studio-related initiatives. WBOL also introduced a cost efficient “e-team” service to secure promotion for Warner Bros. Entertainment properties on major portals, media players and affinity sites, generating more than three billion impressions last year alone.
Noonan joined Warner Bros. Online in 2001 from Warner Music Group, where he had served for a year as Senior Vice President, Strategic Promotions, with a focus on developing WMG’s cross-divisional promotions and strategic alliances. During the five years prior, he was Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Warner Music Group. In this post, he identified and created a number of non-traditional promotional outlets for WMG’s artists, including the HBO live music series “Reverb,” which he developed and executive produced. The program debuted in 1996 and became the highest-rated regularly scheduled music program on television. In 1998, Noonan, partnering with The WB Television Network, created a cross-promotional strategy for WMG artists featured on the network’s shows, which yielded significant sales increases for the artists showcased and has since been adopted by the entire music industry.
Prior to joining WMG, Noonan served for seven years as Vice President, Corporate Affairs for HBO, where he was responsible for overseeing all corporate affairs activities with print and electronic media, public policy issues and corporate relationships with HBO’s various public constituencies. He joined HBO in 1986 as Director, Corporate Affairs. Before HBO, Noonan worked as Deputy Director of Communications for CBS News in New York and as a Senior Account Executive for the New York public relations firm Scanlon and Menken.
The Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group was founded in October 2005 to bring together all of Warner Bros.’ businesses involved in the digital delivery of entertainment content to consumers, while furthering Warner Bros.’ mandate to harness the benefits of emerging technologies and manage the risks these technologies pose to the economic value of the content. The business units comprising the WBHEG include Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, Warner Home Video, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (including Warner Bros. Games), Warner Bros. Technical Operations and Warner Bros. Anti-Piracy Operations.# # #