Mumbai: At the onset of February, Dana Walden was upped to co-chairman of Disney Entertainment, thus making her in charge of the company’s TV networks, with the return of Bob Iger as Disney’s CEO. In her first big decision, Walden has now reshuffled the team - John Landgraf and Simran Sethi have been handed over additional responsibilities.

Landgraf, who has a long association with FX, has added brands such as Nat Geo and Onyx Collective to his purview. Onyx remains a major Disney priority and will continue to be run by Tara Duncan with her sole focus being on the same. Keeping that in mind, Duncan’s Freeform programming responsibilities will shift to Sethi, who will uphold her role at ABC Entertainment as well. 

For Sethi, an Indian American, who is now executive vice president programming and content strategy for ABC and Freeform, the additional responsibility serves to be a homecoming to a younger-skewing brand that she helped to launch. She guides all of ABC’s comedy, drama and long-form series development, and is responsible for developing new content strategies for the network. Prior to joining ABC, Sethi held executive positions at Netflix, Freeform and NBC.

Sethi most recently served as director of International Originals - India and the Middle East at Netflix where she helped shape the launch strategy and steered the growth in the roster of Indian originals for the global streaming company. She will continue to report to Disney Television Group president Craig Erwich, who also counts Disney Branded TV president Ayo Davis as one of his direct reports.

Both Duncan and Courteney Monroe, who oversee Nat Geo, will report to Landgraf.

After Iger returned to Disney in a surprise move, additionally film veteran Alan Bergman who previously served as chairman of Disney Studios Content, was given joint oversight, along with Walden, of the company’s global film and TV content production operations which include Marvel Studios, Pixar, Disney+, Hulu, ABC, Disney Channel and other entertainment-related assets.

Debra O’Connell will continue to oversee networks and ABC owned television stations, and will add research, labour relations and TV business operations to her purview. Disney Television Studios will remain under Eric Schrier, who will expand his responsibilities to include global original television strategy.