BBC Studios Hires GMs in Further Asia Reshuffle

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BBC Studios the coproduction and rights sales arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, has appointed Fiona Lang and Ryan Shiotani as general managers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Lang, currently COO for the company in Australia and New Zealand, is promoted to become BBC Studios’ GM in the same geography. Her responsibilities cover marketing, advertising, creative, commercial and content sales. Shiotani becomes SVP and GM for South and South East Asia, having previously been acting SVP for branded services in Asia.

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Both roles report directly to Jon Penn, EVP, BBC Studios APAC ,as part of the newly formed APAC regional business, incorporating Australia, New Zealand and Asia, which was announced in September 2019.

They join other executives in the reshuffled group, including: Kelvin Yau, SVP & GM, Greater China; Geo Lee, SVP & GM, North East Asia; Phil Hardman, SVP commercial operations & strategy, Asia; Julia Nocciolino, SVP commercial director, China; Laura Byrnes, head of business and legal affairs, APAC; Laura Parsons, HR business partner, APAC; Laura Dumbrell, head of communications, APAC; and Angela Muddle, head of commercial finance, Asia.

BBC Studios covers Australia, New Zealand and 23 countries across the Asia region, and operates from eight offices, including main bases in Sydney, Beijing and Singapore. The BBC Studios business in Australia and New Zealand wholly owns seven channels: BBC First, BBC UKTV, BBC Earth and CBeebies on Foxtel and Fetch TV in Australia; BBC Living (shortly to be replaced by BBC Brit) on Fetch TV; and BBC UKTV and BBC Earth on Sky TV in New Zealand. It distributes content to other channels and platforms, and produced BBC formats from the Sydney office.

The BBC Studios business in Asia sells content to digital and linear platforms, with some significant pre-sales to major broadcasters. Activities also include branded programming blocks, the SVoD BBC Player in Singapore and Malaysia, and a production operation in Mumbai, India.

BBC joint ventures in Asia also include ones with Sony India for Sony BBC Earth channel and Tencent in China for BBC Earth Tribe.

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