Amanda Hill
Chief Marketing Officer, A+E Networks
In just over a year on the job Hill has shifted the global marketing vision for A+E Networks. She’s growing the visibility of all the brands in the portfolio and leading the charge on their evolution. She’s also been involved in some of the biggest launches in company history including launch of Lifetime as a free-to-air channel in Turkey. In addition, Hill brought Pulse Films into the A+E Networks fold with a distribution deal establishing A+E as the worldwide distributer for unscripted programming and formats for the studio, and was the creative vision for the launch of FYI in India. She also has her eye trained on live programming: “We’re getting perspectives from people who might otherwise have been ignored, where the cameras wouldn’t have usually gone and it’s stretching our point of view. The shift is significant.”
What advice would you give your 13-year-old self?
No matter what life throws at you along the way, your power will be in your story, the wisdom it brings you, the courage that will build within every day. Just lead your life with passion, heart and dignity… and be the best friend you can be along the way. There’s nothing to replace it.
Which current programming best reflects the kind of women’s roles you like to see and why?
This is one I feel passionately about as we know that strong female characters on TV have a very real impact on the way women and girls perceive themselves and impacts the cultural dialogue. I respond to roles that are pioneering, smash the gender stereotype, tackle hot-button issues head on, change the conversation. Women who are accomplished on their own terms, ambitious and sassy and yet equally flawed. We seek out those nuances and contradictions as that’s how we really are. I love Shiri and Constance in “UnReal” – both driven, relentlessly complex women. They don’t talk about boys or their hair. They’re talking about strategy and power. It’s their competitive dysfunctional friendship that is the real love story. For the same reasons I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “Veep” – hilarious, in charge, but also conflicted and with often completely insane behavior.. and all so believable. Then there’s “Scandal,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Girls.” Powerful, strong, honest, complex… and very funny.
What’s been the biggest story in cable this year?
BIGGEST or, for me, most interesting is LIVE. Live coverage is, from a cable industry perspective, one of the ways that was perceived to defend against the Internet. But, new streaming apps, especially in news, don’t just get the stories out fast, but also expand on the kind of stories we even normally see. We’re getting perspectives from people who might otherwise have been ignored, where the cameras wouldn’t have usually gone and it’s stretching our point of view. The shift is significant.
