Lifetime Taps Liz Gateley to Lead Programming

Lifetime has appointed programming veteran Liz Gateley as its executive vice president and head of programming, the network said.

Gateley will oversee all content creation for Lifetime and their affiliated brands including the movies, scripted series and non-fiction teams, said network officials.

Gateley, who worked with Lifetime in the early 20000s, most recently was co-founder, with partner Tony DiSanto, of DiGa (part of ITV), where she helped produce MTVs Teen Wolf and Kesha: My Crazy Beautiful Life for MTV as well as the upcoming Oxygen series, Player Gets Played.

“Liz has great passion and vision for the Lifetime brand. She started her career here, developing scripted and reality series, before moving to MTV, where she had an incredibly successful run transforming that network and the TV landscape in general with a string of genre-defining hits,” said Robert Sharenow, Executive Vice President and GM, Lifetime and A&E, to whom Ms. Gateley will report. “I know she will be a great collaborator with my amazing team to help take Lifetime to the next level, across all platforms.”

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.