As NYC Television Week returns to live-event status, the editors of B+C Multichannel News will once again single out a select group of emerging executives pushing the boundaries of industry innovation as this year’s New York “40 Under 40.”
This group of pioneering people help create, market and sell what we’re watching on the video screen. They’re at the forefront of an industry where the development and delivery of content is transforming at a record pace, and they’re involved in a variety of disciplines, from OTT to FAST to Big Data and more.
To learn more about this year’s New York 40 Under 40, and the NYC Television Week event at Manhattan’s 230 Fifth where they’ll be honored on September 15, visit tvweek40under40.com.
Denise Bailey-Castro
Head of Finance, BET Networks
Paramount Global
Denise Bailey-Castro manages all financial aspects of BET Networks across a portfolio that includes BET, BET Plus and BET Studios. She joined as a member of the executive team that launched BET Plus in 2019 and continues to support its partnership with Tyler Perry Studios. Within a year, her efforts helped BET Plus gain more than 1 million subscribers and become the No. 1 African-American SVOD service. Previously, Bailey-Castro led negotiations with cable, satellite and digital partners as a member of the legacy Viacom Media Networks content distribution team. Earlier she worked at JPMorgan, Paramount Pictures and HBO.
Ben Belmont
Senior Director, Digital Strategy
Paramount Global
Ben Belmont is a senior director of digital strategy at Paramount Global, leading an integrated marketing team for streaming service Pluto TV. He led the Pluto TV general positioning and sponsorship strategy as the platform became part of Paramount Global’s unified sales team. He has been with the company for nine years, touching nearly every area of the business. Belmont began his career focused on CBS Sports Digital in the nascent days of streaming video. Prior to joining Paramount (at the time, CBS) Belmont graduated from Duke University, where he was a four-year men’s lacrosse letter winner, a two-time All-ACC Academic team selection and a member of the 2010 National Championship team.
Dan Callahan
Senior VP, Data Strategy and Sales Innovation
Fox Corp.
Dan Callahan is senior VP of data strategy and sales innovation for Fox Ad Sales. He is based in New York and reports to Fox Ad Sales president Marianne Gambelli. In this role, Callahan leads a team that is focused on the next generation of advertising capabilities, notably around audience and programmatic advertising solutions and driving their widespread adoption by marketers and agencies. This includes efforts around the company’s Fox Next initiative, delivering precise audiences and driving gains for advertising partners. He serves as Fox’s board member of OpenAP, the industry consortium developing new industry standards around data-driven advertising. Callahan joined Fox in 2007. In 2019, he was promoted to his current role. Callahan graduated from Wake Forest University where he was a member of the school’s ACC champion football team.
Matt Chazen
Television Agent
CAA
Based in Creative Artists Agency’s New York office, Matt Chazen represents many of the world’s leading production companies, documentarians and independent producers, including ll3Media, Box to Box, DiGa, NorthSouth, OBB, Pulse Films and Radical Media, as well as directors/producers such as Angie Day, Nick Davis, Alex Lowry, Erik Parker and Michael Steed. Over the past few years, Chazen has put a specific focus on growing his representation of intellectual property by signing media companies and digital publishers. After three years working in integrated marketing at NBCUniversal, Chazen made the move to CAA in 2012, joining the alternative television department in New York City. Within the past year, Chazen has put together several premium projects on behalf of clients, including the upcoming Jerry Garcia documentary from clients the Jerry Garcia Estate LLC, Justin Kreutzmann and Radical Media.
Daniel Church
Head of Advanced TV Product
Beachfront Media
Daniel Church is a savvy and strategic product leader with nearly a decade of experience driving advertising innovation across the TV industry. As head of Advanced TV Product, he leads ad-tech provider Beachfront Media’s attempts to uniformly connect cable, broadcast and connected TV within modern advertising marketplaces. A market-renowned expert in TV infrastructure and high-frequency ad trading, he has authored several patent-pending technologies around Advanced TV. Prior to his role at Beachfront, Church served in similar roles at FreeWheel, StickAds.tv (acquired by FreeWheel) and Smaato.
Kevin Connelly
Senior Director, Programmatic Monetization
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Kevin Connelly is responsible for programmatic revenue across all of Sinclair’s digital properties, including a portfolio of 250-plus station sites and apps, along with streaming inventory from Bally Sports Networks, NewsON and Tennis Channel. Responsibilities include providing inventory access points for brand advertisers, agencies and DSP partners, as well as creating strategic solutions across the company’s technology stack. Connelly also contributes to business development ventures and strategic projects within Sinclair Digital.
Mike Correia
VP, U.S. Networks Distribution
Paramount Global
Mike Correia is the lead or second chair negotiator on multimillion or billion-dollar content licensing negotiations with Paramount Global’s distribution partners, in categories such as retransmission consent, cable networks and digital deals. He also manages day-to-day business relationships and works with distributors to identify new business development and partnership opportunities. Prior to joining Paramount, he was on Univision’s content distribution team and handled the launch and distribution of cable network Univision Deportes. He began his career in media at ION Media Networks, supporting distribution efforts for ION’s 60 owned-and-operated stations. Earlier, he was an analyst at Bloomberg.
Patrick Courtney
Senior VP, Digital Strategy
Fuse Media
At Latino-owned Fuse Media, Patrick Courtney oversees strategy and operations for the company’s emerging media efforts and streaming division. He leads strategy for its business development efforts, subscription service Fuse Plus, mobile and connected-TV app development, YouTube and social-media growth, as well as its free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) brands, Fuse Beat, Fuse Backstage and Fuse Sweat. Earlier, Courtney served as SVP of programming and marketing strategy for the digital media company Above Average, founded by Lorne Michaels’s Broadway Video and backed by Turner and Condé Nast.
Samantha DiPippo
Senior VP, Development
Hallmark Media
Reporting to Hallmark Media EVP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly, Samantha DiPippo is responsible for the sourcing and development of original holiday content for the company’s three linear networks, Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and Hallmark Drama, and the subscription VOD service Hallmark Movies Now. Her oversight includes hearing pitches, evaluating submissions, developing projects and creating programming strategies with senior management. Prior to joining Crown Media in 2017, DiPippo was director of co-productions and acquisitions for Lifetime Networks. Previously, she held positions in the programming and scheduling departments at both truTV and History Channel. She has a bachelor’s degree in television and radio from Ithaca College.
Sean Doherty Jr.
COO, Co-Founder
Wurl
Sean Doherty Jr. co-founded Wurl in 2010 with David Martinez and Sean Doherty Sr., aiming to make TV better for everyone. Wurl interconnects thousands of streaming channels from the world’s top content companies with leading streamers in more than 50 countries. His vision and leadership of Wurl recently led to the company’s $430 million purchase by Silicon Valley’s Applovin. He began his work with Wurl as a sophomore at Boston College. After college, he joined the Endeavor Group agency WME in the talent department, where he had roles as an assistant and coordinator. Since transitioning back to Wurl full-time in 2018, Doherty has held different roles, including director of business development and SVP of operations.
Matthew Dominguez
Senior Manager, Streaming Distribution and Partnerships
Cox Media Group
Matthew Dominguez manages free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels for 10 Cox Media Group local TV news stations. He also oversees distribution for 12 third-party streaming partners. He is responsible for sourcing and negotiating distribution agreements, executing streaming strategy and supporting content and programming efforts to drive revenue and audience growth. Prior to joining CMG, he worked in digital distribution at Fuse Media, where he managed AVOD, SVOD and FAST distribution. In addition to his experience on the distribution side, he worked in OTT content strategy and video production operations for Discovery’s digital food brands, including Food Network, Food.com and Genius Kitchen.
Mike Fisher
VP, Advanced TV
Essence/Group M
Mike Fisher in 2020 joined the media agency Essence to lead the Converged Advanced TV practice from the world of ad tech, where he previously led TV/OTT strategy at MediaMath and was one of the first to help build out streaming dynamic creative at Brightline. It wasn’t long before his role with Essence was expanded into a dual-hat position within GroupM to bring together disparate parts of the business and drive the Advanced TV practice forward, moving it away from purely linear or digital toward an audience-first approach.
Lauren Fry
Chief Revenue Officer
Simulmedia
Lauren Fry first joined Simulmedia, the cross-channel TV advertising firm where she is chief revenue officer, in 2013 as an account executive. After serving as director of tune-in sales and VP, customer success and business analytics, for Xandr (then AT&T AdWorks), she rejoined Simulmedia in 2018. She was responsible for the growth and sales revenue strategy for TV Plus, the cross-channel TV advertising platform Simulmedia began rolling out in late 2021. Fry started her career as a national sales planner at Comcast Spotlight. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology from Bucknell University and an MBA in finance and management from New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Tara Gotch
Senior VP, National Services
Comscore
As SVP, national services for Comscore, Tara Gotch oversees a team and portfolio of enterprise, medium and small business clients ranging across all Comscore products, with a focus on national networks, publishers, digital and crossplatform. She brings more than a decade of industry experience to her current role at Comscore. She started her career at Comcast NBCUniversal and spent more than seven years on the ad sales team, working across a number of networks and platforms. In 2013, she joined Rentrak before assuming her role at Comscore following the 2016 merger of the companies.
Angie Grande
Director of Streaming News Channels
NBC Universal Local
Angela “Angie” Grande thrives on being a trailblazer in the news industry. She started her career as a news producer at WKTV in her hometown of Utica, New York, during her senior year of college. She went on to work as a producer in Syracuse and Albany, New York, before making her way to WNBC New York, spending seven years there as a top producer. In 2018, she joined NBC News Digital to help develop a first-of-its kind news show on Snapchat, Stay Tuned. Now, as director of streaming news channels for NBCUniversal Local, she is charting the launch of NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations’ new local news channels for streaming platforms.
David Koonin
Sports Media Agent, Head of Sports Media Marketing and Endorsements
CAA
As an agent in Creative Artists Agency’s Sports Media practice, David Koonin
represents more than 40 sports media talent clients, including ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Dan Orlovsky, Damien Woody and Field Yates; Turner/CBS’s Grant Hill; Turner’s Allie LaForce; YouTube superstars Dude Perfect; and NFL Network and CBS’s Scott Pioli. In his dual role as head of endorsements and marketing for CAA Sports Media, he oversees a team of three agents who work on behalf of CAA’s roster of more than 200 clients. This role includes managing the endorsement and commercial portfolios of his own clients, in addition to such sports media stars as Mike Greenberg, Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Adrian Wojnarowski, Malika Andrews, Laura Rutledge, Marty Smith and Joe Buck.
Courtney Kundtz
Senior Director, Head of Client Services and Ad Business Operations
Roku
Courtney Kundtz is responsible for overseeing the success of all ad revenue clients that partner and execute campaigns on the Roku platform. Since starting at Roku, Kundtz has led the client services team through record-breaking revenue and organization growth. More recently, she began overseeing the ad strategy on the order-to-cash process as streaming media shifts towards more automated buying. She also was elected to co-chair the Women of Roku Employee Relations Group, helping foster and promote inclusive employee development and leadership initiatives. She is a Colgate University alumnus, a council board member of Hathaway Brown School for Girls and a certified yoga instructor in New York City.
Erin Leigh
Senior VP, The TV Group
Screen Engine/ASI
Erin Leigh is an SVP in the Screen Engine/ASI Television Group. She runs the kids’ TV team and has consulted on thousands of pilots with top platforms and studios in that arena, providing strategic guidance for clients throughout the green-lighting and series development process. She has been with Screen Engine ASI (SEA) for nearly 10 years. Prior to SEA, she was at both JD Power and Lieberman Research (now Material). Her client base is broad and includes companies such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount Global, NBCUniversal and DreamWorks. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from UCLA and a master’s degree in human behavior from USC.
Brian Lin
Senior VP of Product Management, Advanced Advertising
TelevisaUnivision
Brian Lin is head of product management within TelevisaUnivision’s ad sales organization, focusing on strategy and productization of new capabilities across the advanced advertising ecosystem. His aim is to build or partner to enable capabilities across advanced linear, addressable, new interactive ad formats and commerce. Prior to TelevisaUnivision, the 10-year industry veteran led product innovation for organizations including VideoAmp, Viacom, OpenAP, Cablevision Systems and most recently MadHive, where he served as chief product officer. At MadHive, Lin drove product and strategy for the company’s software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based suite of customizable solutions.
Socrates Lozano
Senior Director, ScrippsCast and Newsroom Innovation
E.W. Scripps Co.
Socrates Lozano, a 16-year broadcast executive, has spent the last four years helping build the E.W. Scripps connected-TV content strategy and technology infrastructure. He has a passion for storytelling and is immersed in modernizing the production and distribution of content to viewers. Winner of the “Creating Value” award for work building a new approach to streaming across 42 television stations, he leads a new broadcast initiative focusing on newscast personalization and AI-driven experiences on all platforms, including ATSC 3.0.
Kevin Maloy
VP, Advanced TV Solutions
Amobee
Kevin Maloy is VP of Advanced TV Solutions at Amobee, the cross-channel video advertising platform provider. With more than 10 years of experience, he has been a key player in the evolution of the connected-TV ecosystem, having served as one of the industry’s first CTV buyers in 2014. At Amobee, he has won new business and retained key clients, including Fox, The Walt Disney Co., A+E Networks and Univision. He is able to successfully leverage legacy platforms and enhance their performance by layering on technology that allows Amobee to get to market quickly, yet sets the framework to allow for continuous innovation of ad products across its full portfolio.
Lindsey Mandia
VP, Production
Fox Sports
Emmy Award-winning producer Lindsey Mandia leads the Fox Sports production team from the company’s Charlotte, North Carolina, headquarters. With more than a decade at Fox Sports, Mandia manages a growing staff of more than 50 employees and oversees the creation of all video content for Fox NASCAR races (Cup, Xfinity, Trucks, ARCA), Fox NFL Sunday, and college basketball and football. Her oversight includes the production of five studio shows including NASCAR Race Hub and NASCAR RaceDay, which accounts for more than 10 hours of weekly programming during the height of the NASCAR season. Mandia also was instrumental in building up the Fox Sports production hub in Charlotte.
Jason Manningham
CEO & Co-Founder
Blockgraph
Jason Manningham is CEO and co-founder of Blockgraph, the advertising-technology company incubated at Comcast-owned FreeWheel and launched as an independent company two years ago. Its platform enables data-driven advertising with privacy protection. Owned by Comcast NBCUniversal, Charter Communications and Paramount Global, Blockgraph’s distribution footprint has grown to 71 million internet households, 51 million pay TV homes and 40 million addressable TV households. Manningham successfully navigated complex, multiparty partnership discussions that raised several million dollars to form the new entity. Before FreeWheel, he was at AOL and Viacom Media Networks.
Joe Marino
Managing Partner and Head of Client Success Organization
MadHive
Joe Marino is the head of the client success organization at MadHive, an enterprise software platform that powers modern media. He oversees revenue generation from new and existing business and builds relationships with current and future clients to ensure their business needs are met and exceeded. He leads a 25-plus-person team that is transforming how advertisers approach and use connected TV, including Fox, Scripps and Tegna. During his tenure at MadHive, he has grown the business from three clients to more than 40, bringing on new TV and radio station groups, national brands, direct-to-consumer brands and agencies. He brought more than a decade of experience building sales and customer relationships to MadHive, including previous leadership roles at MediaMath and Adobe.
Ken Norcross
Head of Data Licensing & Strategy
Vizio
Ken Norcross, head of data licensing and strategy at Vizio, is the operations leader responsible for developing growth strategies at the smart-TV maker’s Inscape data division. Inscape is the leading provider of automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies and TV data. Norcross is responsible for fueling the data-driven strategy of Vizio’s connected-TV business based on ACR TV viewing data as part of the new landscape of third-party measurement platforms used as TV currency. He is also a leading representative for the Vizio-led addressable TV consortium, Project OAR. Before joining Inscape in 2017, Norcross worked in cross-platform measurement at Nielsen.
Corey Petruccelli
VP, National Sales
New York Interconnect
Corey Petruccelli is VP, national sales for the New York Interconnect, the local ad-sales venture among Altice USA, Charter Communications and Comcast that reaches 22 million consumers across 100-plus networks. He is responsible for identifying and selling ad opportunities across the New York DMA to national clients, leveraging addressable TV, IP targeting, OTT and VOD solutions. Before joining NYI, he was a senior account executive at Spectrum Reach for eight years. He received both his MBA and bachelor’s degree from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and lives in Tuckahoe, New York, with his wife and their two children.
Yana Podroubaeva
M&E Global Account Lead
Amazon Web Services
Yana Podroubaeva is a media technology expert with a creative approach, specializing in cloud solutions in the media, entertainment and telecommunications industry. Based in New York City, Podroubaeva leads a $100 million-plus global Media & Entertainment team at Amazon Web Services and mentors 14 Amazonians. She has worked with and transformed the businesses of some of the world’s largest media customers, such as NBCUniversal, The New York Times, News Corp., AMC Networks and Foxtel. Previously based in Sydney, Australia, she worked across media portfolios at Amazon and Telstra.
Kirsten Polley
Senior VP, Operations
WWE
Reporting to WWE co-CEO Nick Khan, Kirsten Polley leads operations for WWE’s revenue strategy and development team. She played a key role in the licensing agreement with longstanding partner NBCUniversal that gave Peacock exclusive U.S. streaming rights to the WWE Network. She also helped lead the strategy and development around the creation of WWE’s first-ever NFT (non-fungible token) drop. Before joining WWE, Polley was a talent agent at Creative Artists Agency, working with such media personalities as Colin Cowherd, Skip Bayless, Charissa Thompson, Adam Schefter and Mike Greenberg. She also helped broker notable TV contracts, including securing a four-year pact with ESPN for Top Rank Boxing and WWE’s deal that brought Friday Night SmackDown to Fox.
Isabel Rafferty
Founder and CEO
Canela Media
Isabel Rafferty is a digital marketing pioneer. She is the founder and CEO of Canela Media, a leading digital-media tech company that gives brands the tools they need to effectively connect with multicultural audiences through multiple touchpoints, including newly launched free-to-stream platform Canela.TV, influencer marketing, branded content and more than 180 exclusive Spanish-language sites. Prior to starting Canela Media, she founded Mobvious, a company dedicated to reaching U.S. Hispanic and African-American audiences via mobile advertising. Under her leadership, Mobvious quickly became the largest Hispanic-focused ad network, as ranked by Comscore, before being acquired by PRISA in 2017.
Justin Rosen
Senior VP, Data and Insights
Ampersand
Justin Rosen joined Ampersand (rebranded from NCC) in 2018 concurrent with the creation of Ampersand’s Advanced TV practice, where he has taken on leadership for data, analytics and insights. He has led the implementation of Ampersand’s addressable data capabilities, established Ampersand’s Total TV and Incremental Reach solutions and has advanced audience-first tactics and storytelling connected to Ampersand’s AND Platform, launched in 2020. He also works alongside Ampersand’s MVPD owners and affiliates to ensure consistent methodology, data governance, and workflows. He received an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BA from Cornell University. He lives in South Orange, New Jersey, with his wife and two sons.
Seth Rubinroit
Manager, Content Integrations and Audio
NBCUniversal Local
Seth Rubinroit spearheads the multiplatform audio strategy for NBCUniversal Local’s 43 NBC- and Telemundo-owned stations and six regional sports networks. He began efforts to shoot video of the division’s network of podcasts, fueling NBC’s multiplatform content engine with 100-plus original TV programming hours. He is a member of NBCUniversal Local’s DEI Council, co-leads the New York chapter of NBCU’s Young Professionals Network and mentors underserved high school students. Before joining NBCUniversal Local, he worked for NBC Sports as a digital editorial producer for the 2016 and 2018 Olympics, interviewing and profiling more than 100 Olympians and Paralympians.
Adam Salmons
VP, Content Acquisition
Philo
Adam Salmons leads Philo’s content-acquisition efforts to bring more channels, shows and movies to its subscribers. At Philo for the past five years, he is responsible for overseeing and growing the relationships with content partners and has been integral in expanding the platform’s offering to include add-ons and FAST channels. Prior to Philo, Adam was manager of content strategy and acquisitions at Verizon Communications, helping to advance the telco’s Fios TV and digital video endeavors. He began his career in the media industry as a financial analyst at HBO, where he was focused on financial strategy for HBO’s domestic network distribution group.
David Sanderson
Founder and CEO
Reelgood
David Sanderson is the founder and CEO of Reelgood, a streaming service aggregator and “TV guide” for streaming. The company has developed the algorithms and proprietary IP that matches all the streaming availability data, which is constantly changing. This technology gathers, parses and matches billions of pieces of content from hundreds of different catalogs of streaming services. Reelgood’s ad product can target people based on their viewership across all their streaming subscriptions. Reelgood already has partnerships with many primary streaming services for this ad product. Prior to launching Reelgood in 2015, Sanderson spent three years at Facebook, most recently as a product manager.
Christy Smith
Director, Social Creative Strategy
Nickelodeon
Christy Smith strives to creatively tell exciting and authentic stories through an ever-evolving kids’ lens. From bringing the Kids’ Choice Awards to life on social media to relaunching beloved shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and All That, she’s a big kid at heart. A true advocate for Black voices and experiences in media, she joined the Paramount family four years ago after being instrumental in developing social and digital campaigns for OWN TV shows Greenleaf and Queen Sugar, cultivating the voice and online social presence for the leader in entertainment for women of color. She is a member of Nickelodeon’s Inclusivity Council and leads all DEI social initiatives and campaigns across Nick’s brands.
Brad Stockton
Senior VP Video Innovation
Dentsu
As SVP of video innovation at Dentsu Media, Brad Stockton oversees advanced video investment strategy, including addressable TV, data-driven linear, connected TV and emerging technologies and platforms. He also oversees U.S. partnerships across the leading partners in the streaming and advanced TV space across all Dentsu agencies, including Carat, DentsuX, 360i, iProspect and Merkle. Over the last decade, he has taken on multiple media strategy buying roles focused on delivering result-driven buying strategies across various client categories including pharmaceuticals, quick service restaurants, entertainment and consumer package goods. Before Dentsu, he was a media manager for Henkel, overseeing the North America beauty omnichannel media portfolio. He studied marketing at Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he also played soccer.
Courtney Thomasma
General Manager, AMC Plus
AMC Networks
Courtney Thomasma is general manager of AMC Plus, AMC Networks’ premium, ad-free streaming bundle featuring original programming from across the company’s entertainment networks, AMC, BBC America, IFC and SundanceTV, and its targeted streaming services Shudder, Sundance Now and IFC Films Unlimited. Thomasma is responsible for the overall management and strategic direction of AMC Plus, driving subscriber acquisition, user engagement and global expansion. Before AMC Plus, she was executive director of BBC America. Earlier, she worked at Nielsen. She started her career in ad sales research for Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Sapna Vyas
VP, Scripted Content
Lifetime
Sapna Vyas is a star at A+E Networks, the global media company, and has become a leading voice in the entertainment scripted community. Since 2008 she has risen through the ranks at Lifetime from an assistant in the scripted series department to VP, scripted content. She spearheads Lifetime’s holiday movies series, which had 30 original titles in 2021 alone. While still in the scripted-series department, she helped to develop hit series Devious Maids, from executive producers Marc Cherry and Eva Longoria. Prior to Lifetime, Vyas worked in scripted development at The CW, and began her career in the TV Literary department at CAA.
Simon Wong
Executive VP
Sabio
Simon Wong is EVP for ad-tech company Sabio Holdings. Minority led and founded, the company includes the Sabio demand-side platform. As EVP, Wong leads product innovation, partnerships, inventory, marketing and growth efforts globally. He joined in 2016 as director of advertising operations. His 13 years of experience includes positions at Opera Mediaworks (now AdColony), IAC, Yahoo! and MediaPost. He began his career as a market research intern for Forbes. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Stony Brook University. He resides with his wife and two children in Queens, New York.
Jimmy Zasowski
Senior VP, Platform Distribution Strategy
Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution
Jimmy Zasowski leads distribution strategy and business affairs for Disney’s media networks, direct-to-consumer, theatrical and home entertainment businesses. He and his team are responsible for deal analysis, strategic planning and developing growth strategies. He collaborates with sales on platform negotiations in the U.S. and globally and plays a pivotal role in bringing direct-to-consumer streaming services — Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, Hulu and Star Plus – to a wide-range of platforms. He joined Disney in 2009.
Samuel Zimmerman
VP, Programming, Shudder
AMC Networks
A former editor and programmer of the film festival for horror website Fangoria, Samuel Zimmerman became involved with AMC’s SVOD service Shudder early in its development, helping with the initial launch and determining its continuous direction serving fans of horror and the supernatural. He was essential to the launch of its first original scripted series, Creepshow, from The Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero. It became the most-watched program in Shudder history, had a successful run on AMC and a fourth season is now in development. Zimmerman also oversaw Shudder’s first original documentary, Horror Noire, on the history of Black stories and creators of horror. It was the inspiration for a fictional anthology series of the same name. ▪️
