{"id":850099,"date":"2026-09-16T19:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850099\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T19:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:18:13","slug":"bbc-studios-la-promotes-ryan-odowd-to-oversee-scripted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/850099\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Studios LA Promotes Ryan O\u2019Dowd To Oversee Scripted"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: BBC Studios<\/a>\u2019 Los Angeles division is taking a new approach to scripted and has promoted its unscripted chief Ryan O\u2019Dowd to oversee it.<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Dowd, who was President, Unscripted, has been named President, BBC Studios Global Productions LA, bringing its scripted and unscripted operations under a single leadership structure.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a result of the move, two executives, Mark Linsey<\/a> and Angie Stephenson<\/a>, will be leaving the company.<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Dowd has had a rapid rise within BBC Studios; he was promoted<\/a> to EVP, Entertainment and Music in 2021 before being named President of Unscripted last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tThe company has successfully ramped up its unscripted slate over the last twelve months; it recently launched Nation\u2019s Dumbest to decent numbers on Fox, where it also has The 1% Club, which just aired its third season, and Celebrity Weakest Link with Jane Lynch, which is heading into season two.<\/p>\n

\n\tDancing with the Stars, which has been through its own renaissance, just premiered Season 35 and launched hit spinoff Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro on ABC, while survival competition series Outlast has aired three seasons on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea behind the move is \u201cdesigned to strengthen collaboration, creative development and production across its U.S. slate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the scripted side, the company is behind series including CBS\u2019 Ghosts and it just landed a series order for a remake of comedy Mammoth<\/a>. It was also behind series such as Fox\u2019s Welcome To Flatch, which was an adaptation of This Country, and Call Me Kat, which was an adaptation of Miranda, as well as The Night Of and Getting On for HBO.<\/p>\n

\n\tLinsey, who was President, Scripted LA, and Stephenson, EVP, Scripted LA are leaving as a result.<\/p>\n

\n\tLinsey, who was previously BBC Controller of Entertainment in the UK and has worked for the corporation for 20 years, has been in LA for three years and Stephenson has worked at the company, and its predecessors for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

\n\tStephenson is expected to segue into producing.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBringing our Los Angeles production activity together under Ryan\u2019s leadership gives us an opportunity to build an even more connected and collaborative creative business in one of the most important television markets in the world. Ryan has proven himself to be an outstanding leader, building a terrific Unscripted slate that includes hits such as Nation\u2019s Dumbest for Fox, Outlast for Netflix, Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro and the resurgent Dancing with the Stars for ABC,\u201d Matt Forde, President, BBC Studios Global Productions, added. \u201cWe have an exciting pipeline of scripted development with some of the leading buyers in the U.S., and this structure puts us in a strong position to build on that momentum while drawing on the full breadth of BBC Studios\u2019 creative and production expertise around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also paid tribute to Linsey and Stephenson.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate to work with Mark for more than a decade, both in the U.S. and the UK. He has had an exceptional career across the BBC and BBC Studios and has made an enormous contribution to our creative success and to the wider television industry. We are incredibly grateful for his leadership, vision and commitment, and wish him every success in his next chapter,\u201d he said. \u201cI also want to thank Angie for the significant impact she has made on our Scripted business in LA, where she\u2019s been instrumental in developing our slate, building important creative relationships and helping bring some fantastic shows to American audiences. We wish her all the very best as she now moves into producing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRyan O\u2019Dowd added, \u201cLos Angeles remains one of the most important creative markets for BBC Studios, and I\u2019m incredibly excited to take on this expanded role. We have tremendous talent and creative ambition across both Scripted and Unscripted, and bringing our production activity together creates new opportunities to collaborate, share ideas and build on the momentum we already have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: BBC Studios\u2019 Los Angeles division is taking a new approach to scripted and has promoted its unscripted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[359334,75380,88,359335,359336,92],"class_list":["post-850099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-angie-stephenson","tag-bbc-studios","tag-entertainment","tag-mark-linsey","tag-ryan-odowd","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}