Discovery Forms New York Production and Development Unit

Rich Ross is expanding Discovery’s development and production efforts with a new unit based out of New York. The newly installed network president announced Thursday his plans for a sizable operation in the market — adding to the current teams based out of Los Angeles and Silver Spring, MD.

“As Discovery Channel creates and delivers more programming to more viewers across all platforms, having a robust development and production team in New York is a crucial and necessary move,” said Ross. “With a larger New York presence, Discovery will be positioned to explore the most opportunities available to develop inventive, high-quality programming.”

Making the move to New York are Discovery execs Matthew Kelly and Michael Sorensen, both vice presidents of development and production. They’ll join recent hire John Hoffman, exec vp of documentaries and specials, on the new team. Both will report to Los Angeles-based exec vp Denise Contis.

Ross, who toke the reins at Discovery just three months ago, spoke about his push to widen the network’s audience with more authentic programming when he met with reporters earlier in January.

“One of the realities of our world and the Discovery Channel that I’ve come into is that it’s more narrowly niche than I think it ever needs to be or should be,” he said, “I think being more inclusive to women and younger men is a way for us to build back the audience … and and to being the No. 1 TV brand for the whole family.”