Industry

Global film and TV studio Fifth Season (formerly Endeavor Content) has made a raft of appointments and promotions across its expanding EMEA Television Distribution team. Led by the recently promoted President of Television Distribution, Prentiss Fraser, Fifth Season’s Television Distribution team is headquartered in London, with executives located in New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Stockholm, Rome, Colombia and Beijing.

Jennifer Ebell has been upped from SVP of EMEA Sales to EVP of EMEA Sales and Acquisitions. Under this expanded role, Ebell will now oversee the company’s London-based acquisitions team, which is led by Liz Tang, who was recently promoted from Director, Content to Executive Director, Acquisitions. Ava Mustos also joined the team in January as Associate Director of Acquisitions from BBC Studios, reporting to Tang.

Additionally, Fabio Tinchant has been upped from Executive Director Sales, French Europe, CEE, MENA & Turkey to VP Sales for the same markets, with the addition of Southern Europe to his remit. Based in Rome, Maria Grazia Ursino has also joined the group as Director, Southern Europe.

In further new hires, Simon Algie has been appointed as Executive Director, Digital Sales, spearheading FIFTH SEASON’s expanding AVOD/FAST exploitation and digital transactions business. Additionally, Ann Schröder has been elevated from Director, Sales: Nordics, Benelux and Ireland to Executive Director for the same markets, and Kaia Roemer joins as Senior Sales Manager for Germany and CEE.

Prentiss Fraser, President, Television Distribution at FIFTH SEASON, said: “Jennifer is an incredibly talented executive in the Television business and a star leader within the FIFTH SEASON organisation. I’m so impressed with the work she’s done and the team she’s built over the past few years here and happy to be able to acknowledge her contributions with this expanded role. It’s always a pleasure to be able to promote from within, and it’s exciting to bring in new talent as well to develop business lines for us as we continue to grow and evolve our next-generation distribution business around the world.”

FIFTH SEASON’S slate of premium scripted and unscripted content includes the Emmy-winning “Severance,” Jack Thorne’s forthcoming BBC drama “Best Interests,” crime drama “Tokyo Vice,” originally commissioned by HBO Max in the US, Nordic dramas “Headhunters” and “The Congregation” from TV4 and C More; “The Morning Show,” Fulwell 73’s high-end reality show “Blowing LA,” Made Up Stories’ first unscripted series, “Undressed With Kathryn Eisman” and their romantic dramedy “Wolf Like Me”; and Lightbox’s premium limited docuseries “Spector” and “Curse of the Chippendales”.

Additional Background:

• Ava Mustos was previously Commercial Manager, Drama at BBC Studios, with her previous roles within BBC Studios encompassing acquisitions, sales planning and commercial strategy.
• Senior sales executive Maria Grazia Ursino has previously held roles including Director, Content Sales (Turkey, Israel, Greece, Cyprus and Malta) at The Walt Disney Company, Executive Director, Sales (Italy, Spain and Portugal) at Fox Networks Group and Sales Director at Sony Pictures Television.
• Global digital sales expert Simon Algie specialises in finding and developing scalable new business opportunities, extending global partnerships and building strategic alliances for media content distribution companies. Algie joins FIFTH SEASON from Vubiquity, where he was Director, Global Content Acquisition and Licensing.
• Kaia Roemer joins from ITV Studios, where she was Senior Sales Manager for EMEA and handled the sales pitches, negotiations and deal making of ITV content across all linear and non-linear channels in German-speaking Europe