Propagate ups Chelsea Friedland, inks overall deal with Shumsky Productions

LA-based studio Propagate Content has promoted Chelsea Friedland to senior VP of development and agreed a multi-year overall deal with David Shumsky’s company, Shumsky Productions.

Chelsea Friedland

New York-based Friedland, who was previously a development exec at the firm, will oversee Propagate’s slate of unscripted projects across documentary features, series and formats. The A+E Networks-backed company has projects in the works with Hulu, Peacock, ABC and others. In addition, Friedland will work on select scripted projects under Rodney Ferrell, president, worldwide scripted content.

Since joining Propagate in 2020, Friedland has worked on titles including City Confidential for A&E and La Firma for Netflix. Prior to joining the company, she was VP of development at Dwayne Johnson’s prodco Seven Bucks. Before that, she was part of the original content team at Red Bull TV.

Propagate co-CEOs Ben Silverman and Howard T Owens said Friedland had played a “major role in our content growth strategy” since arriving at the company, which has doubled down on its development efforts over the past year across both English- and Spanish-language content.

Meanwhile, Shumsky will develop and produce scripted and unscripted content under the overall deal with Propagate. In addition, he will serve as an unscripted content consultant and work with Friedland to oversee several unscripted development projects including game formats and competition series.

Shumsky was previously under an overall deal with Lionsgate, where he created and served as an executive producer on projects including Fox’s Kicking & Screaming and YouTube original Kevin Hart: What the Fit. Shumsky recently finished producing two pilots and is currently in pre-production on a coming-of-age feature film set in Compton.

Silverman and Owens called the overall deal with Shumsky Productions a “big win” as the company puts “increased focus on developing and producing bigger gameshow and competition formats.”