Top-rated UK TV exec in talks with Apple

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Apple original content
Jay Hunt, former creative content chief with Channel 4 in Great Britain, may join Apple's efforts to create original programming.
Photo: Edinburgh International Television Festival/YouTube

Apple is reportedly close to landing another heavy hitter to help build original content.

Jay Hunt, who recently left Great Britain’s Channel 4 after seven years as its chief creative officer, is in talks with Apple for an executive position, according to several British news sites that cover UK’s television industry.

Hunt is not a familiar name in the U.S. but she created a stir in the industry when she poached the popular show the Great British Bake Off from BBC. The baking competition show has had a popular run in the U.S. on PBS.

Apple has been making its own waves by assembling a management team and taking pitch ideas from Hollywood A-listers in an effort to create original TV programming.

Apple, so far, has produced the shows Planet of the Apps and CarPool Karaoke , but wants to make a bigger splash with high-end programs like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad .

Hunt would be a familiar and much-trusted face to Apple’s current original content team, headed by Jamie Erlicht and Zach van Hamburg. While at Sony Pictures Television, Erlicht and van Hamburg worked closely with Hunt on a popular sci-fi show on Channel 4 called Electric Dreams.

The Airwaves was the first UK news site to report Apple’s interest in Hunt, which it called a rumor. An Apple spokesperson, contacted by The Airwaves and another outlet, TBI Vision, declined to comment.

TBI Vision said Hunt would likely work out of Apple’s London office. It also said Hunt was in talks with Netflix shortly after her departure from Channel 4.

Source: The Airwaves

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