Unscripted television producer and executive Nick Rigg, and Leftfield Entertainment, the production group behind History's Pawn Stars franchise and Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and headed by CEO/producer Brent Montgomery, have formed a new joint venture: Loud TV. The full-service entertainment and Production Company will create a broad range of unscripted television and digital content, including branded entertainment. The announcement was Made today by Rigg and Montgomery.
Based in New York City, Loud TV also has hired its first key executives: Julian Locke will serve as the company's executive
Vice president, while Lauren Deen joins Loud TV as senior
Vice president, lifestyle development. Both executives worked previously with Rigg at Leopard Films
USA (House Hunters International, Man Caves, Dear Genevieve), where Rigg was president from 2005 through early 2013, growing the company from a single pilot to produce more than 200 hours of programming a year, across varying genres for networks including HGTV, Food Network, A&E,
TLC and more.
Said Rigg, "As a producer and executive for 15 years, it's been my goal to create a new company that will produce original content across a range of genres, and to assemble a team of nimble, dedicated and highly talented people with the experience and guts to execute their creative visions."
He added, "To form Loud TV with Brent Montgomery, a friend and colleague who has
Built a powerhouse operation in Leftfield Entertainment, is truly the best of both worlds. Certainly, Loud TV will have its own voice and
Style producing shows in and outside the lifestyle category; but we also will
Leverage the strengths and skills of Leftfield to deliver the highest quality product to our clients across every category."
Said Montgomery, "It's an exciting time at Leftfield, with growth of programming genres and partnerships a key area of focus. For us, this means forming collaborative new ventures with industry leaders whose meaningful experience creating and delivering shows has earned the trust of networks, and the loyalty of multi-faceted production teams. We are excited to follow our recent acquisition of Sirens Media with the establishment of Loud TV, and know that Nick Rigg is the best possible person to lead the charge."
Prior to forming Loud TV, Nick Rigg served as president of reality and non-fiction producer Leopard Films
USA for eight years, where he was instrumental in establishing the company as a stronghold in lifestyle franchises (under his leadership, the company was contracted to make nearly 600 episodes of the global hit series
House Hunters International) and shepherding Leopard's branded entertainment endeavors, including a partnership with Bombay Sapphire, the
Ovation TV network, and the famed Art Basel Miami art festival, culminating in the documentary Imagination Unleashed: An Artisan's Journey. Before Leopard, Rigg co-founded a London-based digital media company, Push, whose software was used to package digital branded content for clients such as Alexander McQueen. He also worked at the BBC, where he helped launch BBC3.
Before joining Loud TV, Julian Locke served as
Vice president of Leopard Films USA, where he oversaw all aspects of production on all company series and projects, and all producers and production teams. Prior to Leopard, Locke was a producer and director for the BBC, working on such hit series as
What Not To Wear and While You Were Out. Locke also produced and directed a variety of series and specials for Outdoor Life Network (The Combat Sniper Challenge, Beach Ambush),
MTV (FANatic),
MSNBC (MSNBC Investigates), A&E (Investigative Reports), and
VH1 (Where Are They Now?).
Prior to Loud TV, Lauren Dean was associate
Vice president of development at Leopard Films USA, where she oversaw the food and lifestyle divisions of the company. Before joining Leopard, Deen was already a seasoned producer and director for several networks, having shepherded numerous series, including Next
Food Network Star for Food Network, Foodography with
Mo Rocca for Cooking Channel, and several Emmy award-winning shows within the
Martha Stewart brand. A trained chef, Deen is also a New York Times bestselling author with titles Cook Yourself Thin, Cook Yourself Thin Faster, Kitchen Playdates, and The Meatball Shop.
Leftfield Pictures
Made an indelible mark on the TV industry in 2009 when History launched the breakout hit Pawn Stars, breaking ratings records for History and spawning the "hidden treasures" genre of programming. Spin-off
American Restoration launched in 2011, followed by
Counting Cars and
Cajun Pawn Stars in 2012, and international format Pawn Stars UK in 2013. Leftfield Pictures replicated its franchise success at Science with the series Oddities, Oddities: San Francisco and Odd Folks Home. The company currently is producing series including
The Governor's Wife (A&E),
Guntucky (CMT), Swamp'd (Animal Planet), and Celebrity Home Raiders (Lifetime), with additional series in production for Bravo, Discovery, and History. Leftfield Entertainment, a new umbrella company through which Leftfield is broadening its production footprint via acquisitions, new joint ventures, and producer overall deals, was established in 2013. Its first deal was the March 2013 acquisition of Sirens Media, headquartered in Silver Spring, MD and run by producers Rebecca Toth Diefenbach and Valerie Haselton. Sirens Media produces Bravo's long-running hit docu-soap Real Housewives of New Jersey, and has nine series currently in production for the network Discovery ID, including Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? and Deadly Affairs, hosted by
Susan Lucci. Brent Montgomery serves as CEO of Leftfield Entertainment.
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