Commissioner Moves

In: Andrew O’Connell, VP Development and Production, Discovery Channel

Andrew O’Connell been appointed as Vice President of Development and Production at Discovery Channel, based in the United Kingdom, and reporting directly to Denise Contis, Executive Vice President of Production and Development for Discovery. In this new role, O’Connell will work closely with the UK production community tasked with generating the next factual format hits for the US network. He will also partner with Discovery Network International’s Development and Production team. He officially joins the network on July 11th 2016.

O’Connell joins Discovery from ITV where he was responsible for a wide range of factual programming since June 2014 including Heathrow: Britain’s Busiest Airport, Sugar Free Farm, Rookies, Britain’s Favourite Dogs and Life At The Extreme. Prior to ITV, he spent four years at Channel 5 as Head of News, Current Affairs and Factual and commissioned series including Chris Tarrant’s Extreme Railways, Trauma Doctors, World’s Biggest Pets and Royal Navy: Caribbean Patrol. During his tenure at Sky 1 from 2005- 2009, he was responsible for the multi award-winning Ross Kemp on Gangs and Ross Kemp in Afghanistan series.

Source: Discovery press release