Spike TV has hired Tom Zappala for the new position of executive vice president of programming. He will report to Spike president Kevin Kay.
Zappala was previously executive vice president of acquisitions and scheduling at Disney-ABC Cable Networks Group. At Spike, he will oversee all of the network's scheduling, media planning and acquisitions, replacing senior vice president of programming John Griffin, who left the network in July.
"We are thrilled to have one of the top programmers in the industry join our team," Kay said in a statement. "Tom has a proven track record of success and we look forward to utilizing his wealth of programming experience as Spike continues to grow and expand its audience."
At Disney, Zappala was responsible for all off-network, first-run and feature acquisitions and international and domestic co-productions. He joined ABC Family in 2003 as senior vice president, overseeing acquisitions for the network as well as SoapNet.
Prior to ABC Family, he was a senior vice president of programming at Viacom.
