Q&A: Hasbro Studios’ Stephen Davis

The Hub, a new joint-venture channel from Discovery Communications and Hasbro, recently announced its programming lineup. This service, which launches on October 10, wants to become a destination for children and their families by offering entertaining, empowering and enriching shows, a mission that matches the programming philosophy of the president of Hasbro Studios, Stephen Davis. In fact, Hasbro Studios is providing The Hub with a variety of shows that range from G.I. Joe: Renegades, Family Game Night and Transformers: Prime to Pound Puppies and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

TV KIDS: Children have a lot of entertainment choices. What kind of shows is Hasbro Studios looking to produce?
DAVIS: Because our brands lend themselves to so many different genres, we are not limited to just animation or just live action. We are producing as a real reflection of the diversity of our global brands. Our primary focus right now is producing shows for our new network, The Hub. The exciting thing is that because The Hub is meant to be a destination for kids and family and it wants to attract that variety of viewers, and co-viewing at that, we are offering a very diverse slate to the network, based on the programming priorities that they are setting.

TV KIDS: What kind of talent have you attracted to the studio?
DAVIS: We have been very fortunate to attract some of the best and brightest creative stewards in Hollywood. For instance, Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci are writing and show-running Transformers: Prime.  Alex and Bob did the first Transformers movie, they did Star Trek, Fringe, they worked with J. J. Abrams, they are real top, top notch. With G.I. Joe: Renegades we are working with Henry Gilroy and Marty Isenberg, and their credits include Ben 10 and Rugrats—again, top, top writers. And Lauren Faust, who won an Emmy for The Powerpuff Girls and worked on a number of other top shows, is on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. And these are just a few of the shows we are currently producing.

It’s very exciting. And for a lot of talent it’s a labor of love. They grew up with these brands and they have a real affinity for them. They love being involved in the reimagination of these brands for television. Although Hasbro has certainly focused on building significant businesses around its brands, we are mindful that with respect to television you do have to reimagine and reignite them. Sometimes that means flexing the brand DNA a little bit. And our creative stewards really appreciate that we give them the freedom and the flexibility to reimagine these brands as they see them best suited for television. That’s a quite liberating environment to work within. There are not a lot of studios, we believe, that allow that kind of freedom.

TV KIDS: Are you looking to work with international partners?
DAVIS: The international component of our strategy is very important. We recently hired Finn Arnesen to build our international business, and certainly we want to make shows with international appeal and we want to work with international partners where appropriate. Our primary mission in our first year is to supply The Hub, but there is no question that we are very aggressively pursuing our international strategy.

TV KIDS: You are interested in developing brands that Hasbro has but also ideas from third parties?
DAVIS: We are absolutely open to third-party ideas. While we have an amazing stable of more than 1,500 brands, which certainly gives us a lot to do, and provides a lot of opportunity, we are definitely open to other people’s ideas.

TV KIDS: On a personal level, what challenge does working in the children’s arena present for you?
DAVIS: For two and a half years I had my own company called Family Entertainment Group, and we were really focused on programming, principally in the family-entertainment space. While I was at Carlton and at Granada I had a lot of exposure to kids’ programming on the production and the sales sides.

For me this is just a natural extension of my experience and I love it. I started Family Entertainment Group because I saw there was a real need in the market to provide whole-family programming experiences that other companies were not providing. To now be able to realize that dream within Hasbro in such a significantly greater way, with such an amazing array of brands and such an incredible company that is very supportive of the 360-degree approach to building enterprises around brands, is a phenomenal opportunity. I love it because I draw upon all my skills every day. It really allows me to flex my creative and business abilities. Also, I’ve tried to surround myself with people who are really at the top of their game, and I think we have succeeded. We have a great team. We have a lot of energy, a lot of creativity, tremendous resources and an amazing platform.