CBS Television Studios Exec Julie McNamara Adds Cable Drama Development to Portfolio

Julie McNamara has been upped to president of drama development for broadcast and cable programming at CBS Television Studios. The promotion adds cable drama development to McNamara’s purview. The announcement came Thursday from CBS Television Studios president David Stapf, to whom McNamara reports.

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“Julie’s relationships in this town, her amazing skills working collaboratively with writers and her incredible creative instincts have helped build an outstanding roster of dramas for our studio,” said Stapf in a statement. “She is simply invaluable to our division’s success making hit network shows, and we look for to expanding her role as we increase our footprint in the cable market.”

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The studio’s first cable drama, USA’s Common Law, premiered to 2.5 million viewers in May.

Additionally, Karyn Smith-Forge joins the studio as vp of cable development, reporting to McNamara. Smith-Forge comes from Fox TV Studios where she worked on cable dramas including USA’s White Collar and A&E’s The Glades.

McNamara developed multiple new fall dramas for CBS and CW including Elementary and Vegas on CBS and Beauty and the Beast and Emily Owens, M.D. of CW.

The restructuring comes in the wake of the departure of Bela Bejaria, who headed up cable drama at CBS TV Studios before leaving last year to run Universal Television.