Lifted Entertainment appoints trio of development hires

Lifted Entertainment appoints trio of development hires

7th April, 2021 - Lifted Entertainment, part of ITV Studios, the label behind some of the biggest, award-winning entertainment shows including I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, Love Island, Dancing on Ice, University Challenge and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, has announced three senior development appointments.

Ramy El-Bergamy is joining the label to spearhead development at its northern base in MediaCityUK, working into Lee McNicholas who recently joined the label as Creative Director, North, while Sean O’Brien and Susannah Haley have joined the London-based team, as Development Producer and Development Executive respectively, reporting into Head of Development, Kat Hebden.

El-Bergamy joins from Two Rivers Media and was previously Head of Development of Daytime & Popular Factual at STV Productions. Prior to STV, he spent four years at Channel 4, latterly as Commissioning Executive in the Daytime team and, before that, as On-Screen Diversity Executive. Previously he held a wide range of Producer roles on shows including Ex on the Beach, Big Brother and Geordie Shore.

O’Brien arrives from Talkback where he played a key role in the development of Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle, as well as working extensively on the development of Alan Carr’s Epic Gameshow and Harry’s Heroes: The Full English and Euro Having a Laugh for ITV, and Jon Richardson, Ultimate Worrier for Dave. Haley meanwhile specialises in comedy entertainment, having developed and series produced Channel 4’s The Rob Rinder Verdict, developed a number of pilots for Channel 4 and BBC One, and previously held various development roles including at Viacom and fellow ITV Studios label, Potato.

Their appointments follow the recent announcement of McNicholas joining the newly-named Lifted Entertainment and the commission of a brand new primetime pilot for ITV, Secret Gameshow, an entertaining new spin on the hidden camera format, hosted by comedian and The Masked Singer host Joel Dommett.

Lee McNicholas said: “I am delighted that Ramy is joining the incredible team at Lifted Entertainment in Manchester. He joins us with a wealth of experience in production and development and I couldn’t be happier to have him on board.”

Kat Hebden added: “Susannah and Sean are joining a brilliant creative team here at Lifted Entertainment at what is a really exciting time for the label.”

Lifted Entertainment is home to some of the most-watched shows on television. The most recent series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, which was filmed in the UK for the first time, was the 20th edition of the show and returned record-breaking figures with over 25 million requests on the ITV Hub. Love Island is the most watched show on ITV2 ever, while Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, produced with Mitre Entertainment, returned for its 17th series last month, with a consolidated audience of 8.5m viewers tuning in for its launch episode.

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