Michele Barney spent two decades at DirecTV and then AT&T, one of the biggest pay TV distributors in the country, negotiating deals with programmers. She loved it and earned a reputation for being a fair bargainer who wanted to solve problems for both parties at the table.
Trained as an accountant and then as a lawyer, she became an attorney for DirecTV doing programming deals. There, she fully embraced the business of TV. That’s a good thing because, after it became clear that AT&T was planning to sell the pay TV business to private equity, she opened herself up to consider other opportunities. And an excellent one presented itself on the programmer side of the business.
