Warner Bros. hires Bachelor Oz exec from Shine

Warner Bros. International Television Production has hired the executive producer of its Australian Network Ten series The Bachelor.

Shaun Murphy has been named as WBITVP’s head of entertainment in Australia after three years of producing flagship format The Bachelor. He joins from Shine Australia and has 20 years of production experience.

The creation of his new post comes as Eyeworks Australia’s rebranding as WBITVP Australia becomes complete, following Warner Bros.’s €200 million (US$220 million) acquisition of the Eyeworks Group last year.

“Shaun joining WBITVP underlines our commitment and ambition for growing our Australian production business,” said Andrew Zein, WBITVP’s senior VP, creative, format development and sales. “He joins our already exceptional team, which includes Geraldine Orrock, head of development, who joined WBITVP in September having previously executive produced The Voice Australia and My Kitchen Rules.”

WBITVP said goodbye to Eyeworks Television Australia managing director John McAvoy last year, who left to launch McAvoy Media with Aussie post-production house Cutting Edge.

Murphy’s hire comes as The Bachelor season three launched with a peak audience of 1.38 million capital city and regional area viewers on Ten, up 22% on the 2014 debut.

His departure from Shine Australia comes a week after the producer merged with Endemol Australia to create Endemol Shine Australia. That followed the confirmation Mark and Carl Fennessy would run the merged firm after initially rejecting the chance.