New regime for Shine’s Princess

Shine Group-owned Princess Productions has reshuffled its management team, appointing two permanent co-MDs and a pair of joint programming chiefs.

Emma Hardy and Conor Baily take up the MD roles on a full-time basis following a six-month interim period.

The pair first took charge in December when co-founder and CEO Henriette Conrad became chairman at the London-based prodco, while creative director Duncan Gray moved to work across parent company Shine’s formats.

Meanwhile Will Spokes returns to Princess to take up the newly created position of joint head of programmes, a role he will share with Anna Blue, who has been promoted from head of entertainment.

Both have been tasked with broadening the prodco’s current slate of shows and appointed in the wake of development exec James Longman’s recent departure for FremantleMedia’s Talkback.

Spokes joins from UK indie Tuesday’s Child, where he was creative director, having previously worked for Princess in 2012 and at Shine TV for four years before that.

Meanwhile James Townley will oversee business development as well as communications at the firm, as part of a new expanded role. He joined Princess from Sky in 2011 where he worked as an entertainment production exec.

Conrad said the reshuffle marked “the final parts of the leadership restructure” at Princess, which has worked on entertainment show Got To Dance for Sky 1HD and Sunday Brunch for Channel 4.

The firm, which struggled after its T4 programming block was axed by Channel 4, also recently won rights to produce BBC1’s National Lottery draws earlier this week.