Less than one month after the network’s former senior vice president and general manager, Roger Marmet, resigned, TLC has named a successor: David Abraham, currently Discovery Networks U.K. GM.
Abraham, 41, has managed Discovery’s nine UK channels since 2001. In the coming months, he will relocate to the company’s U.S. headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., to oversee TLC’s programming, production, development, and operations.
Sources say Marmet took the fall for TLC’s ratings lag of late, tied to the flagging fortunes of the network’s once-hot home makeover show, Trading Spaces.
Initially episodes of the show quintupled the TLC’s ratings and spawned a host of copycats in the genre. But when TLC exploited Spaces, running it up to 10 times a week, the show slid from a 4.0 average Nielsen household rating to a 1.5, and the network was left without anything strong to replace it.
During Abraham’s UK tenure with the company, he has helped grow Discovery’s UK channels, including Discovery Home & Leisure and Discovery Health, commissioning successful series including Age of Terror and Reporters at War and earning awards for the UK marketing and promotions team.
