BBC Studios Taps General Manager for Germany

BBC Studios has appointed Philipp Schmid as general manager for the company’s German business, a newly created position based in Cologne.

Schmid will supervise a team charged with TV content sales and co-pro partnerships for all German-speaking territories as well as BBC Studios’ European DVD and EST business. Currently creative director and deputy managing director at Tower Productions, he will continue to collaborate with the company and hold a seat on their shareholders committee. Schmid will transition to BBC Studios’ general manager for Germany over the next two months. He will work under Adam Bishop, the company’s senior VP of content sales for Western Europe.

Before joining Tower Productions, Schmid was head of development for BBC Worldwide’s international formats business. Earlier in his career, he oversaw the company’s European factual co-productions.

Bishop remarked: “Philipp’s expertise in sales, co-productions, formats and local production, along with his extensive knowledge of the German market and BBC Studios’ catalog, makes him the ideal candidate to head up our company in Cologne. The general manager role enables us to bring the local sales and production businesses closer together and comes at a perfect time as BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios merge to form a new unified content company—BBC Studios.”

Schmid added: “I am very excited and honored to be leading BBC Studios’ activities in the German-speaking markets and look forward to working with our hugely talented team in Cologne as well as our amazing local partners. After almost three successful and exciting years at Tower Productions I am convinced our local production business is in rude health, and I look forward to seeing it grow further under the leadership of Arne Kreutzfeldt and his team. In my new role I now look forward to reconnecting with the many partners that I have worked with before, as well as meeting new clients and exploring new opportunities for the BBC Studios business in Germany.”