Shine Australia exec lands US role

Shine Australia’s Director of Programming, Paul Franklin has been appointed to the newly-created position of Executive Vice President, Programming, Shine USA.

He will relocate later this year from Shine Australia to Los Angeles, to oversee the creative side of Shine USA’s unscripted titles including The Biggest Loser, MasterChef and Tabatha Takes Over. There he will report to Company President, expat Aussie Eden Gaha.

Franklin, who is widely touted with leading the creative success of shows such as MasterChef Australia and The Biggest Loser, has been with Shine since July 2010.

Prior to this he was with FremantleMedia Australia as Head of Factual, including under Shine’s Mark and Carl Fennessy.

After his success at reinventing MasterChef, Franklin helped establish the show in the United States and launches in France and India.

For Shine Australia his titles have included Biggest Loser, Junior MasterChef, The Renovators, In Their Footsteps and the fourth season of MasterChef Australia.

Shine USA CEO Carl Fennessy said, “Paul is simply one of the finest program makers in the world and we’re thrilled to welcome him to Shine USA. He has an extraordinary creative vision and a track record of producing exceptional television and delivering super hits. As we continue to build out Shine USA as the destination of choice for creative program making talent, Paul will add a whole new dimension to our team.”

Gaha added, “I’m ecstatic to add Paul to our team. His established knowledge of our existing slate of unscripted programs will be invaluable as we focus on the continued growth of those shows and the development of new projects.”