Silverman, Owens reunite at Propagate

Electus founder Ben Silverman has reunited with longtime collaborator Howard T Owens as co-chairman and CEO of A+E Networks-backed indie Propagate Content.

Ben Silverman

The partnership comes as Propagate receives an additional round of investment from A+E, which partnered with Owens to set up the US firm last year.

“I have always admired Ben and Howard’s long and lucrative track record of building thriving businesses together,” said A+E Networks CEO Nancy Dubuc. “They are two of Hollywood’s most impressive and prolific producers, and we are very much looking forward to our successful partnership as they develop and produce multi-platform content for the global marketplace.”

Propagate is also expanding its programming slate to span all genres, including the development, production and distribution of premium scripted series, longform and non-scripted content for all platforms worldwide, as well as format creation and distribution.

Howard T Owens

The firm has also partnered with pop star will.i.am and Apple on an unscripted series about app developers, marking Apple’s first original television series.

Silverman, who recently left Electus, is taking several pre-existing projects to Propagate, including a scripted series for Amazon and a Latino documentary project from Gina Rodriguez and Morgan Spurlock.

The exec is behind hits including The Office and, more recently, Jane the Virgin, starring Gina Rodriguez.

Owens launched Propagate Content last year after a three-year stint as president of National Geographic Channel.