WarnerMedia appoints new content heads as the international streaming wars heat up

 As streamers look to international pushes to help bolster their bottom lines, we see WarnerMedia announce not one, but two, exciting new content leads. Brandon Blake, our resident entertainment lawyer Los Angeles, unpacks these new appointments.


                                            Brandon Blake- Entertainment Lawyer

May-Yi Lee, the newly appointed head of unscripted content for WarnerMedia’s Asian efforts, is no stranger to the regional industry. Based in Taiwan, she has over two decades in the industry and will be moving over from National Geographic. She will now lead development and production for unscripted originals in Southeast Asia, Korea, and India. This puts her alongside Magdalene Ew, their head of content for the area. HBO Asia VP, Garon De Silva, will lead development and production for scripted originals. These appointments come as WarnerMedia queues up some intriguing programming for the area.

Meanwhile, Hannes Heyelmann has been named the new head of theatrical production for the German-speaking arm of the country in Europe. This is in addition to his current role as Executive VP of programming for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa arenas. He will be coordinating with the new country manager for the German, Austrian, and Switzerland (GAS) regions, Sylvia Rothblum. He will be filling the shoes of Peter Schauerte, whose 2-decade long service with WarnerMedia came to an end this year. He will take over content acquisition as well as windowing for the studio’s linear networks (TNT and Cartoon Network) as well as streamer HBO Max. WarnerMedia has a strong history with German feature films to build on, too.

It’s clear WarnerMedia and HBO Max intend a strong focus on building international subscribership this year. With these new content heads in place, let’s hope we see some interesting productions come out of both key streaming zones as we finish off the 2021 season. As always, we will be on hand to keep you in the loop.

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