Nat Geo Creates New Entertainment Unit

WASHINGTON, November 1: National Geographic has launched
National Geographic Entertainment, a new unit that combines into a single
operating group the company’s Cinema Ventures, Feature Films, Kids
Entertainment, Home Entertainment and Music & Radio divisions, to be helmed
by David Beal as president.

Beal was formerly president of National Geographic Music
& Radio, where he played an instrumental role in the success of the
recently launched Nat Geo Music cable channel in Europe, the new global radio
service, the creation of the Society’s music website and National Geographic
Cinema Ventures’ upcoming distribution of the U2 3D feature film in January 2008.

Prior to being named president of National Geographic Music
& Radio earlier this year, Beal was president of Palm Pictures and oversaw
the creative divisions of Palm, which included film, DVD and interactive
technologies.

The launch of the new entertainment unit follows last week’s
announcement of the creation of National Geographic Global Media (NGGM), composed
of the company’s various magazine, book publishing, television, film, music,
radio, digital media and maps units, NGGM is headed up by Tim Kelly as
president.

“David’s knowledge, connections and skill have already been
of enormous benefit to National Geographic,” Kelly said. “Our entertainment
assets—from the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins to our new Mama Mirabelle series on PBS and BBC—have great potential,
and David is the perfect talent to manage these rapidly growing entertainment
operations. His energy, creativity and entrepreneurial vision will be
enormously important as we seek new ways to harness our skills to inspire
people to care about the planet.”

—By Irene Lew