Vice Studios turns the spotlight on the UK Market

The Client:  Vice Studios in the UK are a division of the Vice Studios Group. They produce and distribute premium content including documentary, factual entertainment, scripted and unscripted TV and film for global television streamers and broadcasters. 

The Challenge: The newly appointed COO was looking to create and pitch a compelling slate of shows from the UK Studios to capitalise on the successes of the award-winning team in the US. The brief was to find a high profile Executive Producer with an existing network of streamer contacts and a track record in selling returning series to build a commercially successful, youth-skewed slate, to align with the brand. 

Our Approach: At the time of hiring, very few UK TV Executive Producers had sold series to streamers, and even fewer to the streamer youth market. The choice for the Studio was to take a risk on a candidate with a strong factual pedigree but with no proven track record, or to hire a creative who could hit the ground running. The client’s preference was the latter, so we made the approach to the most successful Executive Producers in the unscripted streamer market. The client met five candidates; a shorter list than usual, but a strong list nonetheless.  Three were shortlisted and the hire was made from here.

The Result: Thrive hired a multi-award-winning Executive Producer joining from Oscar, BAFTA, Emmy, Grierson, IDA, and Peabody winning production company where he had led the change in direction of the business across documentaries, factual, and branded content as Creative Director and CEO. Our candidate offered a unique blend of creative and commercial capabilities and has taken the Studio from turnover of £800K to £15m+ in two years. In a recent restructure of the team that now incorporates their acquisition, our candidate was promoted to Global Head of Unscripted.