American Idol coproducer FremantleMedia has reshaped its US business following the appointment of North American chief Cecile Frot-Coutaz as the company’s CEO.

Trish Kinane

Trish Kinane has been appointed president of entertainment programming at FremantleMedia North America (FMNA), effective August 1. She was previously president of worldwide entertainment across the group but will now focus her efforts on the US.

Group chief operating officer Gary Carter, who recently announced he would step down ^[1] at the end of the year, will fill Kinane’s previous role until a replacement is found, a Fremantle spokesman told C21.

In her new job based in LA, Kinane will work on the day-to-day operational and creative aspects of FMNA series such as The X Factor, American Idol and America’s Got Talent. She will report to Frot-Coutaz, who next month replaces ^[2] Tony Cohen as Fremantle’s group CEO.

Kinane joined RTL Group-owned Fremantle in 2011 when former president of worldwide entertainment Rob Clark left for an extended sabbatical. She was handed the job on a permanent basis ^[3] when he returned to take on the new role of director of global entertainment development.

Before Fremantle, Kinane was joint MD of UK indie Action Time, where her credits included developing formats such as Backdate, Porkies, Dial a Mum and Watching the Detectives.

Frot-Coutaz said Kinane was a “pre-eminent television production executive with decades of experience,” and claimed her “experience, combined with her remarkable natural creative instincts and inherent management and production know how, make her the perfect choice to ensure the continued success of these market-leading shows.”