Amazon denies ambition to ‘gobble up rights’ and names European Studios execs

Amazon Studios’ director of European originals Georgia Brown has outlined the company’s rapidly growing commissioning structure across the continent and reiterated that the streamer doesn’t want to “gobble up all rights.”

Georgia Brown

Amazon Studios has been focusing its attention on setting up offices across Europe over the past six months, with its “first phase” of appointing country-based commissioners almost completed, Brown told delegates at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

The former Fremantle exec, who earlier this year said the business was going through a “heavy period of investment”, detailed an array of execs based out of Germany, Italy, Spain and France who work across scripted and unscripted programming, including: Nicole Morganti, a former Discovery exec, overseeing non-scripted in Italy; Nikolas Diringer, previously at ProSieben, working across non-scripted in Germany; Philip Pratt, who has been with the company for four years, who oversees unscripted and scripted in Germany; Thomas Dubois overseeing non-scripted in France, as revealed by our sister publication TBI in April; and Oscar Prol, writer on shows including Pesadilla en la Cocina, heading up non-scripted in Spain.

They join former ITN Productions exec Dan Grabiner, who was appointed to oversee unscripted in the UK, as revealed by TBI in January, and Lydia Hampson, who manages scripted in the UK.

Brown said the additions would ensure Amazon had local commissioning knowledge, while the appointment of production, legal, post-production and business affairs staff were also in the works. “Phase one is in motion and nearly there, now it’s phase two, which is working out what our customers actually want,” she said.

Brown also talked up Amazon’s position on rights and, without mentioning streaming rival Netflix, said that her company would offer producers flexible deals and that it remained keen on coproductions.

“We are not a one-size-fits all company that must gobble up everything. We are very conscious of what the show is, which audience we have for it and whether it will work for them.”

She also revealed details of a new, as-yet untitled unscripted series featuring The Grand Tour‘s Richard Hammond, which will be produced by his Chimp Productions banner. The show will follow Hammond and MythBusters’ Tory Belleci as they attempt to survive on a desert island.