Discovery seeks international content chief as Silberwasser leaves

Luis Silberwasser

Discovery Networks International is recruiting for a chief creative officer following the news that Luis Silberwasser and Julian Bellamy are leaving the company.

Bellamy’s move to ITV was made official yesterday and Silberwasser’s departure was relayed to Discovery staff via an internal memo from new international president JB Perette.

Perrette told Discovery employees that a search was underway for a newly-created role at DNI, chief creative officer.

Silberwasser was chief creative officer and Bellamy head of production & development. The new role will combine elements of both and “lead DNI’s factual and lifestyle production with the goals of increasing Discovery¹s profile, delivering shows that are locally relevant and globally successful, and forging stronger relationships with the top production companies in the world,” Perrette said in the internal memo.

The Discovery boss added that Silberwasser and Bellamy had “put DNI on the map as a generator of some of the best high-quality programming the company has produced”.

Silberwasser is a sixteen-year Discovery veteran and is understood to be relocating from London back to his native Miami for an undisclosed role outside of Discovery.

During his tenure as CCO, Silberwasser has coordinated and led the original programming charge at the international channels as well as the acquisitions of UK production companies Betty and Raw. He will leave DNI this summer, as will Bellamy.

“Given these new production capabilities, and the pending departures of Luis and Julian this summer to pursue new opportunities elsewhere, the time is right to take a new approach that will chart the next phase of creative growth for DNI,” Perrette told staff. “Luis and Julian have done a great job operationalising the international production and development function, which gives us the opportunity to appoint new leadership that will focus more exclusively on creative development and execution.”

Discovery is looking at internal and external candidates for the new content role. In the meantime, Rosemary Newell, VP of Programming and Content Operations, will serve as the interim head of the DNI Content Group.