National Geographic Channels' Howard T. Owens to be Keynote Speaker at WESDOC

6:12 PM PDT 6/29/2012 by Alex Ben Block

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Courtesy of Reveille LLC

The head of National Geographic's TV channels will speak on the state of non-fiction television at the conference, which runs from Sept. 9 to 12 in Culver City.

Howard T. Owens, president of the National Geographic Channels, will be the keynote speaker in September at WESTDOC: The West Coast Documentary and Reality Conference, it was announced Friday by Richard Propper and Chuck Braverman, the co-founders of the conference.

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“Howard Owens is an innovative entertainment executive who has deftly maneuvered content onto emerging platforms and technologies, and we’re thrilled he’s agreed to share his insights with our attendees,” says Propper, who is also managing partner of WESTDOC.

“He is one of the most respected and involved executives in the industry, and we’re looking forward to learning a great deal about where the non-fiction industry stands and where it’s going,” adds Braverman, who is also an Academy Award nominated documentary and TV producer and director.

Owens will speak on Sept. 10, the second day of the three day conference, about the current state and future of non-fiction programming. The third edition of WESDOC (in the past four years) is being held in Culver City, California. Info is available at WESTDOC.com.

Owens has oversight of National Geographic’s domestic channels, including National Geographic, Nat Geo WILD and Nat Geo Mundo, which are jointly owned by the Fox Networks Group and the National Geographic Society.

Until he joined Nat Geo in November 2011, Owens was best known in Hollywood for being a founder and lead manager of Reveille, an entertainment company whose shows include The Biggest Loser, The Restaurant and Nashville Star. Reveille, whicih also produced for digital distribution, was sold to The Shine Group.

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Before that Owens was a television packaging agent at William Morris, where he represented such brands as Anheuser Busch, Maxim, InStyle, eBay and Miramax Films.