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LONDON – Viacom International Media Networks has promoted Jill Offman to a post that will give her lead responsibility for the Comedy Central brand outside the U.S.
As senior vp comedy for the international arm of entertainment giant Viacom, Offman will report to Bob Bakish, president and CEO of VIMN, and remain based in London.
The comedy brand leads in each of VIMN’s five global regions will report to Offman.
In her expanded role, she will also retain her previous oversight role of Comedy Central’s international content strategy. The company said that the strategy “is focused on establishing an international pipeline of original scripted and nonscripted comedy and entertainment content for VIMN’s portfolio of 17 international comedy channels.”
Offman also remains senior vp and managing director of Comedy Central UK, a BSkyB/Viacom UK joint venture, reporting to Dave Lynn, managing director of VIMN UK, Australia, Central & Eastern Europe and Russia.
Said Bakish: “Comedy Central has enjoyed extraordinary international growth in the last few years, and Jill has contributed significantly to the brand’s success by establishing Comedy Central UK as one of the country’s most consistently popular pay TV services. With oversight of our international content strategy for our comedy channels and a keen understanding of how humor differs from market to market, Jill is best placed to lead the next phase of Comedy Central’s development as the only truly international comedy network.”
Offman has overseen such high-profile program acquisitions as Friends and Two and Half Men and such U.K. original show orders as Threesome and Big Bad World.
Previously, Offman was channel director of Discovery UK from 2005 and was later promoted to take charge of content for all 11 channels in Discovery’s U.K. channel portfolio.
E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
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