Hoogstra says yes to Dress prodco

Dirk Hoogstra

US production company Half Yard Productions has appointed a former executive VP and general manager of cablenet History as its new executive VP of development.

Based out of New York, Dirk Hoogstra will work closely with the Red Arrow Studios-owned company’s recently promoted chief creative officer, Nicole Sorrenti, and VP of development, Matt Ayres.

Hoogstar exited History in 2015, replaced by former FYI and LMN president Jana Bennett, and in early 2017 he launched his own digital prodco Triton City Entertainment.

Explaining the hire, Sean Gallagher, CEO of Half Yard Productions, said: “Dirk and I worked together for many years at Discovery and TLC, developing hit series such as American Chopper, Dirty Jobs and Little People, Big World. We’ve had a lot of success together, and I wanted to bring that creative chemistry over to Half Yard.”

As well as the shows mentioned by Gallagher, Hoogstra’s credits include scripted and unscripted History hits such as American Pickers, Counting Cars, Mountain Men, Top Gear, Hatfields & McCoys, The Bible and Vikings.

The news comes after Half Yard was commissioned by Discovery earlier this year to produce two new spin-offs of its successful franchise Say Yes to the Dress, which is currently in its 17th season for TLC. Say Yes to Nest premiered in January on HGTV and began a six-part run last month, while Say Yes to the Dress America premieres on TLC in January 2020.

Hoogstra said: “I’m thrilled to be getting the band back together with Sean. He’s built a strong creative team, and we’re going to be moving quickly to build on Half Yard’s already impressive stable of hit series.”