Ex-Discovery content chief finds Electric role

Former Discovery Networks International content chief Phil Craig has joined Australian producer Electric Pictures as head of factual.

Craig (pictured), who has also worked at the ABC, will work out of Electric’s Fremantle, Western Australia base, working closely with founder Andre Ogilvie and his team to build the business locally and internationally.

The role will allow him to spend considerable time in London, where the British producer’s family is based. This made it a “perfect gig”, he said, while adding he was “very much looking forwards to re-entering the Aussie media scene”.

Craig had been based in the UK while chief creative officer at Discovery Communications’ international arm, though he left that post after just ten months last year.

This came after Marjorie Kaplan was drafted across from the US to become DNI’s president of content, relocating to London in the process.

Last week, TBI reported Craig would executive produce a Canadian version of The History of Us, which will broadcast as part of pubcaster the CBC’s programmes celebrating Canada’s 150^th anniversary.

Electric is behind factual shows such as Murdoch, which is about Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch; The War That Changed Us, which looks at how World War I changed Australia; and Boomtown, which is about Western Australia. More recently, it produced Enigma Man for the ABC, whose commercial arm has shopped it around the world.

“I want us to be the first choice for any UK, American, Canadian, European or other TV mates in need of a production partner down under,” said Craig, who was previously head of factual at the ABC and produced for Nutopia and the BBC.