SKY STUDIOS APPOINTS THREE NEW EXECS FOR ITS COMEDY DIVISION

Sky Studios announced the expansion of its Comedy team with three new hires, intended to focus on indie commissioning and in-house development, including Adnan Ahmed and Katie Churchill as in-house Producers and Alex Moody as Commissioning Editor for indie-led projects. The team will develop, commission, and produce original scripted comedy for the company. “Katie, Adnan, and Alex are three of the best in the business," Jon Mountague, Director of Comedy, Sky Studios, said. "They all have brilliant track-records in delivering break-out comedy hits and will each bring their distinctive and diverse taste to Sky Original comedy as we expand both our indie-commissions and our in-house development slate.”

Ahmed, who joins from BBC Studios, and Churchill, who joins from Tiger Aspect, serve as the first hires to help the company's restructuring efforts, led by Anil Gupta, with newly discovered talent and creatives working alongside them. During his time at BBC, Ahmed produced the UK’s first British Muslim sketch show "Muzlamic," as well as "The Big Asian Stand Up," the "BBC New Comedy Awards," "podcasts," and several shows for "BBC Radio 4." Churchill’s credits from her time as a development producer at Tiger Aspect include Producing "Simon Amstell: Set Free" on Netflix, "Lazy Susan" for BBC2, and "Jonny Sweet’s Le Maire"  on BBC Radio 2, among her assistant production for others. “2020 was a vintage year for comedy at Sky with more viewers and critical acclaim than ever before both in the UK and around the world with our original series picked up by HBO Max, Peacock, Hulu, Stan, and more,"

Moody will work alongside fellow Commissioning Editor Tilusha Ghelani and Mountague to further boost Sky Studios’ growing slate of indie-produced Sky Original comedies, in line with Sky’s commitment to more than double its investment in original content by 2024. “This year is set to be even bigger with more returning series and more new Sky Originals,” “There’s never been a better time to work in Comedy at Sky, not least because you don’t have to sit in the office with the Drama team.”

Alongside in-house development, Sky Studios will strengthen its indie commissioning team with the appointment of Alex Moody as Commissioning Editor, reporting to Director of Comedy, Jon Mountague. Sky Studio's remit is to source, develop and produce scripted Sky Originals for Sky’s platforms across Europe, with all projects for Sky UK jointly commissioned by Sky Studios and by Zai Bennett, Sky UK’s MD of Content. This year will see the return of several Sky Original comedies including Intelligence, Code 404, Frayed, Brassic, and Breeders, among other launches.