Skydance has divided its international television and streaming business into four regions, each run by a leader reporting to JB Perrette, and Andrew Georgiou, the interim head of Europe and Africa, will leave the company next year. Perrette set out the structure in a staff memo on Thursday, which Deadline published and Realscreen and PRODU also reported.
Key facts
- Four regional leaders: Europe and Africa; Asia Pacific and MENA (James Gibbons); Poland (Kasia Kieli); Latin America and US Hispanic (Fernando Medin)
- Andrew Georgiou stays on through a search for his successor, then leaves next year
- Reemah Sakaan adds the UK and Ireland entertainment business to her role running 5
- Departures include Dan Barnes, Michael Bishara, Jamie Cooke, Domenic DiMeglio, Marco Nobili, Pank Patel and Juan Sola
- Trey Turner becomes chief operating officer of international
It is the first full picture of how the company formed by the $110bn combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will sell and programme outside the US. For producers, distributors and channel partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America, it settles who now signs off on local programming, carriage and advertising.
Who runs what
Each regional leader will oversee distribution, advertising sales, business development and local TV programming across both the linear networks and the streaming services in their markets. Perrette, co-chair and chief business officer of the TV and direct-to-consumer divisions, wrote that the regions will work with global teams for advertising, distribution and sport.
Three of the four regional heads keep the jobs they already held. James Gibbons runs Asia Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa, with Beverley McGarvey, Jason Monteiro and Shonali Bedi moving under him. Kasia Kieli continues to run Poland as a separate, integrated unit, which Perrette explained by the size of the group’s news, sport, entertainment and digital business there. Fernando Medin keeps Latin America and US Hispanic.
Europe and Africa is the open seat. Georgiou, who ran Warner Bros. Discovery in the UK and Ireland and its European sport operation before taking the interim Skydance post, will help with the handover while the company looks for a replacement. Beneath that role, Alessandro Araimo adds Turkey and Africa to Italy, Spain and France; Qaisar Rafique takes distribution and business development across Europe plus Central and Eastern Europe outside Poland; Reemah Sakaan, president of 5, takes the UK and Ireland entertainment business; and Christina Sulebakk keeps the Nordics, Benelux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Germany is one of the markets where streamers are still adding local commissioning staff, as Prime Video’s latest hire shows.
Central functions and exits
Marketing for international TV moves to Shauna Spenley, already chief marketing officer for global streaming, with country teams reporting to her and keeping a dotted line to local managing directors. International communications staff will report to Jeff Cusson. Trey Turner adds the job of chief operating officer, international, to his finance brief. A search is under way for a dedicated head of Pluto/AVOD, the ad-supported streaming business.
The memo also confirmed seven senior departures from the former Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery teams. Separately, Ronald Goes, who runs the international formats production business, moves to Skydance TV Studios under Channing Dungey. Perrette told staff that further clarifications and refinements within sub-teams would follow.
Our reading
The structure gives regional heads the commercial and programming decisions while pulling marketing and communications to the centre. For outside partners, the practical change is that one regional office now speaks for both the channels and the streaming services, so a carriage talk and a streaming licence may end up on the same desk. Europe has the most moving parts and, for now, no permanent head, so partners there may wait longer for answers. The next evidence will be the Europe and Africa appointment and whether Poland’s integrated model is copied in other large free-to-air markets. More on the group sits on our Skydance tag and in Distribution & Streaming.