EXCLUSIVE: Amy Powell, a veteran TV and advertising and marketing exec identified for her stints at Paramount and most just lately Amazon, has joined Vice Media to guide its studio operation.
As President of Vice Studios, Powell will oversee the studio’s inventive and industrial technique, steering international growth, manufacturing, and partnerships. Vice Studios develops, funds and produces each scripted and unscripted fare. Notable latest titles embody sequence Gangs of London and Atomic in addition to the documentary characteristic Bama Rush on Max, which can quickly turn into an unscripted sequence on Lifetime.
Previous to the Vice position, which formally begins June 2, Powell has been head of leisure advertising and marketing for Amazon and earlier than that Co-Founder and CEO of Brillstein Leisure Companions.
As Powell comes aboard, Vice stated studio co-head Danny Gabai has determined to depart and get nearer to the inventive finish of issues by way of a producing take care of Vice Studios.
A seasoned digital marketer, Powell first made business waves at Paramount Footage after touchdown on the studio in 2004. She labored on a listing of profitable campaigns together with for microbudget horror breakout Paranormal Exercise in addition to big-budget tentpoles like Iron Man and the Mission: Unimaginable franchise. In 2013, as the corporate ramped up TV manufacturing, she grew to become president of Paramount Tv because it made hit sequence like Jack Ryan and 13 Causes Why. Her tenure at Paramount got here to an abrupt finish in 2018 over an insensitive remark allegation, which she denied; the matter was settled by the events with a payout by Paramount and no official discovering of wrongdoing by Powell.
The studio rent is the newest milestone for Vice in its emergence from chapter in 2023. Final December, it rebranded its cable channel, a three way partnership with A+E International Media, to orient it round sports activities and in addition created a sports activities manufacturing arm. It adopted that transfer by including former Barstool Sports activities CEO Erica Ayers Badan to its board of administrators, largely to assist oversee the sports activities push. The corporate additionally struck a distribution take care of ITV Studios and bought Cuba Footage from Curtis Brown/UTA in addition to London Alley Leisure. Together with Pulse Movies, the manufacturing belongings make Vice a top-tier producer of commercials and music movies.
Mike Lang, Government Chairman of Vice Media, informed Deadline that Powell is “the lacking piece” within the firm’s manufacturing efforts. “We’ve been doing nicely at it however we have to go to the following stage.” Powell, he stated, “will take what we’ve established and actually drive it to the place the place we expect it must be.”
Powell stated she has lengthy appreciated Vice programming, which she stated adopted the trailblazing path of early MTV. “Vice has at all times punched above its weight,” she stated in an interview. “It is a second when viewers have a need for honesty and genuine international storytelling.”
As to the sports activities dimension of her new publish, she stated she is an avid viewer of stay sports activities. “I’ve discovered a lot working at Amazon,” she added, whose acquisition of NFL and NBA rights coincided together with her tenure. Together with the stay video games is “the significance of adjoining content material” with “dramatic stakes,” she added, which is an space the place Vice can present its “distinctive perspective.”
“I look ahead to partnering with Amy as she accelerates the studio’s scripted and unscripted pipeline, particularly within the U.S.,” Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon stated in a press release. “As a key member of the senior management staff, Amy may also assist drive companywide branded leisure, promoting, and digital initiatives throughout the Vice portfolio.” He added his because of Gabai “for his many vital contributions to the corporate.”
