Raw hires for US unscripted push

Discovery-owned UK prodco Raw TV has bolstered its team in the US by hiring one development head and promoting another.

Oliver Calleja

Oliver Calleja is joining in the newly created role of head of US development, reporting to executive VP of US television Adam Hawkins and working alongside development executive Felicity Morris.

Calleja was most recently head of international development at RDF, where he developed Mine Hunters for National Geographic and Undercover Angel for Nat Geo People.

Prior to that, he was a producer at Zig Zag and Firecracker, where he cast and produced for the first season of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, creating the blueprint for the series.

Tom Lazenby

Meanwhile, Tom Lazenby has been upped to head of scripted development across the US and UK TV slate and will report to Katherine Butler, Raw’s head of film and TV drama.

Lazenby was previously a story producer on critically acclaimed crime procedural Suspects for Channel 5 and a development executive at FremantleMedia drama company Newman Street.

Raw CEO Joely Fether said: “The appointment of Olly as our new head of US development will give us increased firepower in the US non-scripted space and will allow Adam the ability to work across more of our productions and closely with Katherine Butler across the US scripted slate.”

Raw is known for its Gold Rush series on Discovery and recently worked on its first scripted miniseries, Harley & the Davidsons, for the same channel.