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Montgomery unveils Wheelhouse

Former ITV America CEO Brent Montgomery has unveiled details of his new company, Wheelhouse Entertainment.

Brent Montgomery

The prodco, which has offices in New York and LA, will create content and marketing opportunities across multiple businesses and platforms, and will forge talent-driven partnerships and 360-degree businesses that Wheelhouse will invest in and manage.

Montgomery, who stepped down from ITV America last week, has also unveiled Wheelhouse’s first production label, Spoke Studios, which recently launched a production partnership with ITV America.

The banner aims to create “provocative and talent-driven content across a variety of platforms” and will “explore unique points of view with programming that spotlights extraordinary worlds, dynamic characters and human ingenuity.”

Spoke and ITV America will work together on a range of unscripted series and projects to be produced by the in-house production team at the UK commercial broadcaster’s US division, ITV America.

Spoke will operate offices on both the east and west coasts of the US, with leadership and key development staff to be announced shortly.

Ed Simpson, most recently exec VP of business development & international at ITV America until he stepped down at the same time as Montgomery, has been named as chief strategy officer at Wheelhouse.

The company’s launch comes two years after Montgomery became CEO at ITV America and almost four years after the UK-based commercial broadcaster bought his Leftfield Entertainment prodco.

He has been replaced at ITV America by former ITV America president David George, with Montgomery staying on at the firm for the next six months as strategic advisor. In addition to Leftfield, companies on the ITV America roster include Sirens Media, Loud TV, Outpost Entertainment, High Noon Entertainment and Thinkfactory Media.

Montgomery said Wheelhouse would be “something new and disruptive” and would “concentrate on creating new and alternative business models specifically aimed at solving our clients’ cost challenges, while leveraging the changing and rocky media landscape we are all navigating.”

He added that the company would “seek out and broker key talent partnerships that Wheelhouse also will invest in, helping to nurture and market a range of opportunities that fuel our talents’ goals and key businesses, both inside and outside of entertainment.”

Montgomery said his exec team would “embrace a maverick approach and risk-taking, balanced with sound strategy and expert execution.”

He will work with Simpson, George and ITV America chief creative officer Adam Sher to spearhead the production partnership with Spoke.

ITV America reshuffled its creative team last year, appointing heads of programming for the east and west coasts of the US at its in-house production group.

Prior to that, its UK commercial broadcaster parent moved its Leftfield Entertainment label under the ITV America umbrella. It also appointed George, Leftfield’s former CEO, as president of the US division.

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