Crown ups casting, development execs

Crown Media Family Networks, operator of US cablenet Hallmark Channel, has promoted casting exec Penny Perry to senior VP of casting and Jessica Callahan to director of development.

Jessica Callahan

Based at the company’s headquarters in Los Angeles, Perry will be responsible for all strategic oversight of talent agreements, maintaining relationships with existing talent rosters, and sourcing actors to all of Hallmark’s programming.

She joined Crown from Larry Levinson Productions in 2016, where she casted more than 150 original movies for Hallmark Channel as well as several miniseries for Syfy Channel.

Callahan, who most recently was manager of development at Crown, will oversee development of original movies and TV projects from inception to completion. Prior to that, she was director of development for Hallmark Hall of Fame Production.

Perry and Callahan will both report to Randy Pope, senior VP of original programming and development. Their appointments follow last September’s recruitment of Francisco González from Storybox Entertainment as senior VP of international distribution.

“Both Penny and Jessica’s contributions to our increasing original programming slate have proven to be invaluable,” said Michelle Vicary, exec VP of programming and network publicity. “I have every confidence that these well-deserved promotions better position our team in this exciting era of growth and expansion.”