Veteran producer Stuart Krasnow has been named executive VP of creative affairs at Telepictures Productions, reporting to Hilary Estey McLoughlin, president. Telepictures is the first-run production arm of Warner Bros. Television, producing such shows as Ellen and Extra.
Krasnow replaces Lisa Hackner, who recently departed the studio after 22 years to develop and produce her own projects.
In this new position, Krasnow will oversee Telepictures' development of new programming and content for all distribution outlets, including first-run syndication, cable strips, and digital. He'll also oversee Telepictures' creative development team, which includes Sheila Bouttier, senior vice president of programming and development, an eight-year veteran of the department, and Tomii Crump, director of development, who joined the team in October 2011 from TV Land. Krasnow will also manage overall producer deals at the company.
"I am thrilled to have Stuart running development at Telepictures," said Estey McLoughlin in a statement. "He completely understands our business and brings a fresh perspective and entrepreneurial spirit."
"Entertainment has become a business where content is king and Telepictures is an industry leader in the diversity and quality of content that it provides to the marketplace every single day. I don't think there is a better place to be for someone who loves to create, develop and nurture content and talent, than to be part of a company that can react daily to the constant challenges in what we watch and how we view it," said Krasnow, also in a statement.
Krasnow has developed and produced in almost every genre of unscripted television for nearly every major television network and studio in the U.S., ranging from network primetime reality and game, daytime talk, cable docudrama, late night talk, news and documentary. His track record includes such hits as The Weakest Link, Average Joe, Dog Eat Dog and The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.
For the past three years, Krasnow has been running his own production shingle, Krasnow Productions with an overall production deal with Fox 21. Along the way, he's sold and developed projects for GSN, OWN, HGTV, A&E, TBS, E! and MTV.
Krasnow also identified Ricki Lake as a viable talk-show host, later signing on to help launch her show in 1993 and fostering a reinvention of the talk-show format in the process. He served as executive producer on King World's The Martin Short Show, was executive producer and co-creator of Twentieth's Forgive Or Forget With Mother Love and of ABC's The Mommies. He was an executive consultant on ABC's The View.
Previously, Krasnow was senior producer on Dateline NBC and NBC's Today and served as senior talent coordinator on Late Night with David Letterman.
He began his career working for CNN, where he was named senior producer in charge of entertainment coverage when he was just 24.
