All the latest news from the global content industry on Friday, 5 September

 

WBD alum Lisa Holme joins Roku

Roku Media has hired former Warner Bros Discovery and Hulu exec Lisa Holme as its head of content.

Holme starts on Monday and reports into former Fox chief Charlie Collier, president of Roku Media, with a remit across the company’s global content slate.

She replaces David Eilenberg, who left this summer to return to ITV America as its creative director.

Holme was most recently chief growth and strategy officer at Peter Chernin’s North Road Company, and before that had been senior vice president of global content strategy at WBD.

 

UK’s 5 buys Pier Morgan’s YouTube show

Paramount-owned 5 in the UK has picked up YouTube show Piers Morgan Uncensored.

5 will showcase a 90-minute weekly compilation of best bits of the YouTube channel Piers Morgan Uncensored, in what is claimed to a world-first collaboration between a YouTube current affairs show and a legacy broadcaster.

The show previously aired on UK screens on Rupert Murdoch-owned channel TalkTV until last year, before the nightly talk show was axed in favour of becoming a YouTube-only proposition.

Earlier this year Morgan purchased the rights for the show - which claims more than 4m subscribers - from Murdoch’s News UK.

 

BBC rejigs comedy commissioning team

BBC Comedy’s head of development Navi Lamba has stepped into a commissioning editor role as part of a reshuffle of Jon Petrie’s team, Broadcast can reveal.

Acting development head Roya Eslami is to remain in the post permanently, having covered Lamba’s maternity leave for a year.

Lamba will join the four existing commissioning editors Seb Barwell, Ben Caudell, Emma Lawson and Gregor Sharp and will work alongside them to get more exposure on mainstream BBC1 shows, as well as oversee her own development slate of shows. Read more

 

Apple TV+ travelogue lands Prince William

Prince William is to feature in the upcoming third series of Twofour’s Eugene Levy-fronted Apple TV+ travelogue The Reluctant Traveler.

The Prince of Wales will join Levy as a special guest as the Schitt’s Creek actor embarks on a personal bucket list journey across eight countries. Canadian singer Michael Bublé, his daughter actress Sarah Levy, K-Pop boy band Nowz and former Indian cricketer Rahul Dravid will also join him on his excursions across eight episodes.

Other guests to feature include Korean-American singer and actor Eric Nam and English cricketer Jofra Archer.

The first two series of The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy saw the Schitt’s Creek actor step outside of his comfort zone to confront his fears around travelling and inch closer to becoming an avid traveller. Read more