Sony is changing the guard at its Culver City film and television studio.
Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra, who quietly rebuilt the studio's business over seven years, will hand the reins in January to a key member of his management team, Ravi Ahuja.
Ahuja currently heads Sony's global television studios, which have directed hits such as “The Crown,” “The Boys,” “Cobra Kai” and “The Last of Us.” Ahuja, a former television executive at Walt Disney Co. and Fox Corp., joined Sony Pictures three years ago to oversee its television business and production in India. Since he arrived, his portfolio has been growing steadily.
The 53-year-old executive was promoted to chief operating officer of the entire studio in April, a move that marked Sony's succession plan.
As part of the transition, Vinciquerra, 70, will remain at Sony as an advisor until 2025.
Sony said Monday that Ahuja will take over as president and CEO of the studio on January 2. He will report to Sony Group Corp. president and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida and Hiroki Totoki, president and chief operating officer of the Japanese electronics company.
“Ravi brings years of experience at some of the world's most successful entertainment companies and we look forward to working more closely with him in his new role,” Yoshida said in a statement announcing the changes.
The transition has been in the making for more than two years. Vinciquerra recruited Ahuja, who also worked for him during their joint tenure at Rupert Murdoch's Fox. Vinciquerra built the networking business for Murdoch and Ahuja served as chief financial officer.
Ahuja, in a statement, expressed his gratitude for his new role at Sony and for Vinciquerra's support.
“I am excited about the opportunities ahead and am fortunate to work alongside thousands of talented colleagues around the world at SPE and our sister companies Sony,” said Ahuja.
Vinciquerra is credited with skillfully leading Sony Pictures during a period of tumult among traditional Hollywood studios.
“The extraordinary turnaround experienced by SPE over the past 10 years would not have been possible without Tony's deep experience and knowledge in the entertainment space, his strategic vision and his outstanding leadership,” Yoshida said in a statement.
Vinciquerra quickly recognized that the linear television channel business was doomed and worked to unwind Sony's cable channels, except in Latin America, Spain and India, where the business is still vibrant.
Then, as other entertainment companies, including Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global, rushed to build their own streaming services to fight Netflix and Amazon's Prime Video, Vinciquerra eschewed that strategy.
The veteran executive acknowledged that it would take several years to turn a profit from streaming and he didn't want to burden his cautious parent company in Japan with billions of dollars in losses.
Instead, Sony Pictures became what's known as an “arms dealer” in the streaming wars, producing shows for Netflix, Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery's HBO and Disney's ABC. The decision ensured that Sony Pictures made huge profits while others in Hollywood reeled from financial difficulties and laid off thousands of workers.
Vinciquerra told The Times that such decisions came down to “applying common sense and logic.”
“When everyone launched[to streaming]”I thought, Well, none of these companies can satisfy all of their creative needs,” Vinciquerra said in an interview. “Everyone is going to be at war for subscribers. We have a great library, we have great creators in our bench, so let's provide them so they can fight their wars. We did it and it worked.”
Sony owns a popular and profitable streaming service: Crunchyroll, which has thousands of Japanese anime titles. The subscription service has 15 million subscribers and has more than 100 million users in dozens of countries.
Under Vinciquerra, the studio took pride in nurturing its beloved mainstays, including “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” However, studio leaders ran into trouble replacing Alex Trebek as host of America's most popular quiz show.
Vinciquerra faced numerous challenges while leading Sony.
He joined the studio in June 2017, when it was still adrift after the catastrophic computer hack in late 2014. There had been several management changes and morale was low. He also presided over the COVID-19 pandemic, which crushed the studio's film business, and last year's double strike by Hollywood actors and writers.
Vinciquerra played a diplomatic role during the strikes, encouraging both studios and unions to return to the negotiating table.
“We are a very stable company,” Vinciquerra said. “I would take our hand over any of our competitors in the traditional field.”
Tony Vinciquerra, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
For years, rumors circulated that Tokyo-based Sony had fallen out with Hollywood, speculation that accelerated after the cyberattack blamed on North Korea. Vinciquerra helped put those rumors to rest by making the studio a more respected part of the PlayStation maker's global empire.
As for film, directed by Tom Rothman, box office hits in recent years include the animated films “Spider-Verse,” “It Ends With Us,” “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and “Anyone But “You.”
“Under Tony's leadership, SPE became a vitally important part of our efforts to maximize the value of our intellectual property and find synergies across our entertainment and technology businesses,” Yoshida said in the statement. “It remains a key factor in Sony Group's current corporate strategies to lean more into creative and entertainment spaces.”
