Wrigley Media Group Expands Unscripted Team

Kentucky-based Wrigley Media Group has expanded its unscripted development team with the hiring of Sara Auspitz, Don Sikorski and Cyndi Harder Steele.

Auspitz, an alum of E!, Game Show Network and Fuse, has been brought on as a creative and senior network executive. Sikorski, who has credits on Live PD, The Supreme Team and POLICE 24/7, has been hired as an executive producer and series creator. Harder Steele, who has worked on Buddy Valastro’s Cake Dynasty and Chopped, has been tapped as senior director of development, with a focus on social experiments, food competitions and broad entertainment formats.

Auspitz brings over two decades of experience in unscripted television to the company. She has held senior development and production roles at large cable networks and production companies such as the aforementioned E!, Game Show Network and Fuse, as well as TBS and Endemol Shine. In 2022, she transitioned from the buying side of the business to focus on developing and selling original content. She has partnered with companies such as Texas Crew Productions, Chopped producer Good Egg Entertainment, Velvet Hammer Media, UNConventional, Wheelhouse’s Twist, Irwin Entertainment, Hot Snakes Media and Stage 3 Productions.

When Auspitz was senior VP of current production at E!, she played a pivotal role in overseeing the network’s flagship series, including Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Botched and the reboot of E! True Hollywood Story. At Game Show Network, she served as head of current series and managed a portfolio that included The Chase, America Says, Skin Wars, Idiotest, Hellevator and Chain Reaction.

Sikorski joins Wrigley Media with over 20 years of experience as well. He has served as an executive producer of A&E’s Live PD, Paramount+’s The Supreme Team and The CW’s POLICE 24/7. He was also the showrunner for POLICE 24/7.

Harder Steele was an executive producer on and helped spearhead the development and production of A&E’s Buddy Valastro’s Cake Dynasty and Legends of the Fork, as well as Hulu’s Cake Toppers. Before she transitioned to development, she worked as a senior-level producer on multiple large-format series, including Food Network’s Bobby’s Triple Threat, Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, Buddy vs. Duff and Worst Cooks in America, as well as Netflix’s Snack vs. Chef, among others.

Wrigley Media’s unscripted development team is led by Ross Brietenbach (Hack My Home), who was named head of unscripted and brand development earlier this year.

“We are building something very special here in Kentucky, where we are the largest film and TV company in the state and growing exponentially,” said Joe Livecchi, CEO of Wrigley Media. “Our commitment to unscripted original development and production comes when many in our industry are unfortunately shrinking their teams. On top of that, Kentucky’s 30 to 35 percent tax rebate that we cash flow upfront to preferred partners along with our state-of-the-art facilities in Lexington are a complete production game-changer.”

Brietenbach added, “We are thrilled to bring on such a talented and experienced trio of unscripted executives, who have collectively spent decades developing and producing a wide array of hit series: Sara, who has served as a senior network exec and brings years of true-crime experience; Cyndi, who worked as both a buyer and seller and has an eye for new social experiment and unscripted entertainment formats; and Don, who is one of the most respected access-driven crime producers working today. They join our established team at Wrigley Media that’s already produced hundreds of hours of TV and will surely help us expand upon that success going forward.”