International television executive, and producing pioneer, Rola Bauer is stepping down from her post as as head of pan-English scripted SVOD TV at Amazon Studios, Bauer and Amazon announced on Wednesday.
After several years at the global streamer, producing series starring the likes of Sophie Turner, Bill Nighy, Riz Ahmed and Robin Wright, Bauer said she wanted to “return to my entrepreneurial roots.”
Bauer was President of International Television Productions at MGM when, in May 2021, Amazon bought the studio in an $8.5 billion deal. Following the merger, she was put in charge of a new division, pan-English global originals, developing and producing English-language series outside the United States.
Her team produced six series in two years, including such upcoming shows as the thriller series Harlan Coben’s Lazarus starring Sam Claflin and Nighy; crime drama Haven featuring Turner; the half-hour comedy Quarter Life written by, and starring Ahmed; and The Girlfriend, an adaptation of the Michelle Frances novel, which Wright directs and stars alongside Olivia Cooke, Laurie Davidson, and Waleed Zuaiter. All the series have wrapped production and will debut on Amazon Prime over the next 18 months.
Bauer’s team and pan-English global originals will be absorbed into the larger Amazon MGM Studios team, reporting to Amazon Studios’ Head of Television Vernon Sanders.
Amazon said Bauer said the split was mutual — a “respectful uncoupling” quipped one Amazon exec — but Bauer’s exit comes as Amazon is shifting its international production strategy. The new, bifurcated approach is to focus on global, IP-driven blockbuster series — Fallout, Reacher — on the one hand and on hyper-local dramas, comedies and non-scripted shows on the other, like with its popular unscripted comedy format LOL, which has local versions on Amazon Prime in more than 20 territories worldwide.
Bauer is a pioneer in international television co-productions. Tandem Communications, the boutique shingle she co-founded with Tim Halkin in 1999, put together financing for the Emmy-nominated The Pillars of the Earth (2010) — a German, Canadian, British, Hungarian co-production — and the crime drama Crossing Lines, starring the late Donald Sutherland, which ran on NBC in the U.S. but was backed by funding from France, Germany and Belgium.
Co-production is coming back in style as broadcasters worldwide look for means to continue to produce high-end shows with ever-shrinking commissioning budgets. It’s unlikely Bauer will be out of work for long.
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