Amazon MGM Studios has appointed Apple TV exec Oliver Jones as senior commissioner for UK scripted series.
Jones will join the company after six years at Apple, where he served as senior creative executive for international scripted. He takes up his UK-based role in May.
He will work closely with Nicole Clemens, Amazon MGM Studios’ recently appointed vice-president and head of international originals.
Clemens said that during his time at Apple TV, Jones had “played a pivotal role in shaping its international strategy from its early stages”, and that his appointment “underscores our continued investment in world-class UK scripted programming as we expand our slate for UK and global audiences”.
His credits at Apple include Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, starring Kurt Russell, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Masters of the Air and Israeli spy series Tehran.
Scripted commissioners Gemma Brandler and Punit Mattoo will report to Jones. His appointment follows a restructure of Amazon MGM’s commissioning teams into genre-based units, kickstarted by the abrupt departure of Jen Salke last year, which led to head of scripted series Tom Lieber landing an expanded role in the US.
Jones, who is from the UK but has been based in LA for more than a decade, was previously vice-president of scripted development at Fremantle, and also director of scripted development at The Weinstein Company.
Jones said: “It has been a privilege to work alongside my brilliant colleagues at Apple TV for the past six years, and to collaborate with the remarkable artists I was lucky enough to work with.
“It’s always a tough decision to leave a job I love, but the time is right to come back home and start a new adventure.
“Amazon MGM Studios’ commitment and momentum in telling ambitious, provocative, premium stories, together with the scale of their increased investment in the UK, means it couldn’t be a more exciting moment to be joining Nicole and her phenomenal team.”
This story first appeared on Screen’s sister site Broadcast.
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