MUMBAI: Star has made new appointments in its production and programming team as per which Todd Lituchy has been nominated as President, Entertainment, David Searl as Senior Vice President, Production and Donovan Castillo-Mohlman as Vice President, Program Strategy and Acquisitions.

Based in Hong Kong, Lituchy will oversee Star’s program planning, production, network creative services, research and scheduling functions. He will officially join the Company at the end of the year and will report to Laureen Ong, Chief Operating Officer of Star.

Searl will be tasked with further advancing Star’s production capability while Castillo-Mohlman will be responsible for developing programming strategies and acquisitions for the Company. Both of them will be based in Hong Kong and report to Lituchy.

Ong said, “I am pleased to have attracted Todd, David and Donovan, three high calibre TV executives to join us. Their comprehensive and in-depth experience in the critical areas of channel launches, programme production and development will be counted upon as we prepare to expand and enhance our services across Asia.”

“As we prepare to go deeper into the markets in which we operate, the need to raise our production and programming capabilities has become apparent. With Todd, David and Donovan onboard working closely with our existing talented teams, I am confident that we will take a significant step towards achieving this goal, while fortifying Star’s position as Asia‘s leading content provider for years to come.”

Lituchy joins Star from European broadcaster Viasat, where he served the first one and a half years as Senior Vice President, Programming & Acquisitions and the last three and a half years as President, Entertainment, overseeing creative development, program planning, scheduling, and acquisitions. Prior to that, he was the Senior Vice President, Scheduling & Acquisitions at UPN (the United Paramount Network) for five years and the Director of Research at Walt Disney Television for two years.

Searl has 30 years of production and programming experience. He has worked in Asia since 1985. His works include the production of SMS-Chat TV with the Shanghai Media Group, game shows for Star’s Mandarin-language general entertainment channel XING KONG and MediaCorp in Singapore as well as the Thai version of America ‘s Next Top Model for CBS Paramount.

Prior to joining Star, Castillo-Mohlman worked for four years as a Senior Program Planning Manager at Viasat Broadcasting U.K. Before that, he spent nearly four years with FOX Broadcasting in the US, coordinating program planning and scheduling.