Lion US chief Tackaberry steps down

Tony Tackaberry is standing down as CEO of All3Media-owned Lion Television US to explore a new venture.

Tony Tackaberry

Tackaberry has been with the US offshoot of the UK prodco for 17 years and will continue to collaborate with the company on certain projects. Details of his new venture will be revealed in due course.

Under his leadership, Lion expanded into true crime with multiple series at Discovery-owned US cablenet Investigation Discovery, including Dead Reckoning, Diabolical, Crimes Gone Viral and Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall.

Recently, Tackaberry rebooted Lion’s global format Cash Cab for Bravo, which brings the US version to more than 500 episodes, and took the company back to its premium doc roots with Smithsonian Channel’s Just One Man. The latter follows the life of James H Meredith, the first African American man to enrol at the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Senior VP of production and development Allison Corn and senior VP of development Stan Hsue will oversee Lion TV US in the interim.

Nick Catliff, chief content officer at Lion Television UK, said: “Tony joined Lion 17 years ago as the launch series producer of History Detectives when Lion US was just a start-up. He steered that first show brilliantly through its 10-year run on PBS and, since then, he has taken the leading role in the many successes of Lion US, not least the multi-Emmy-winning Cash Cab.

“Tony has been a great friend and colleague and he leaves our US business in very good health with a strong slate of new productions and in the very capable hands of Allison Corn and Stan Hsue. We wish him well in the future.”

Tackaberry added: “I’m eternally grateful to Nick, Richard and everyone at Lion for giving me the chance to lead Lion US for what’s been an amazing run. While I’ll miss so many great colleagues, I’m really proud that I’m leaving the company in great shape and more than capable hands. Stan and Allison are wonderful friends and brilliant executives. I’m genuinely excited about the future and look forward to sharing more soon.”