STEPHEN HILL AND ROB BAGSHAW NAMED EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENTS AT MRC LIVE & ALTERNATIVE

Hill to Lead Creative For Existing Franchises and Bagshaw to Lead Creative for New Franchises 
Editor's note: Stephen Hill Headshot, Rob Bagshaw Headshot

LOS ANGELES - April 7, 2022 - MRC Live & Alternative today named Stephen Hill and Rob Bagshaw both Executive Vice President of Creative, reporting into President Adam Stotsky. MRC Live & Alternative operates the largest portfolio of live televised entertainment events, bringing together the most influential artists and entertainers to audiences globally. 

Hill will lead creative on all existing tentpole shows (“Academy of Country Music Awards,” “American Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” “Streamy Awards”) and select projects currently in development. The “Billboard Music Awards” will air live coast-to-coast on NBC Sunday, May 15 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. 

Bagshaw will lead creative for new franchises, helping to identify formats and shepherd projects through all stages from development through production, including potential expansions of the Emmy-Award winning “So You Think You Can Dance” with partner Industrial Media’s 19 Entertainment. The series returns for a new season Wednesday, May 18 at 9pm ET/PT on Fox. 

“Stephen and Rob are immensely talented creative executives whose hirings signal our continued drive to innovate and expand our offering,” said MRC Live & Alternative President Adam Stotsky. “Stephen has made an imprint on our current roster of shows and has done a tremendous job infusing them with memorable pop culture moments and Rob brings an expertise across a variety of formats that will be an integral part in our expansion in alternative.”

Hill has been a creative consultant with MRC Live & Alternative since April 2021, where he has led creative efforts around the 2021 “Billboard Music Awards,” the 2021 “American Music Awards,” “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2022 with Ryan Seacrest,” the “Streamy Awards,” and the most recent “Academy of Country Music Awards,” which made the historic move to streaming on Prime Video.  

Hill is the former President of Programming for BET Networks, where over nearly two decades he and his team developed and implemented award-winning tentpole shows including the “BET Awards,” “BET Hip Hop Awards,” “Black Girls Rock!,” and “BET Honors,” successful series including “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” “The New Edition Story,” and iconic franchises including“106 & Park,” and “Rap City: The Bassment.”     

Prior to joining BET Networks in 1999, Hill held roles at MTV, WILD-AM in Boston, and ABC Radio Networks, where he launched the Urban Gold Format and served as executive producer for the Tom Joyner Morning Show. A graduate of Brown University, he began shaping his formal career at the university’s radio station, WBRU-FM, in Providence, RI. 

Bagshaw has created formats, served as showrunner, and executive produced for all major US and UK networks, cable, streamers and international platforms with credits that include “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?,” “Top Chef Masters,” “Project Runway All Stars,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Paradise Hotel,” “Castaway,” and “The Big Breakfast.”

He most recently served as Executive Vice President for Kids & Family Group, ViacomCBS, where he built a division for unscripted content across the Nickelodeon brand with new formats, specials and marquee events including “Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards,” “The Spongebob Musical Live On Stage!,” “TIME Kid of the Year,” “The Substitute,” “America’s Most Musical Family,” “Top Elf,” “Paw Patrol Live!,” multiple JoJo Siwa specials and a groundbreaking live broadcast of the NFL’s first family-centric Wild Card Game resulting in 2 Emmy Awards, the network’s largest audience in four years and original content for NFL Super Bowl LV. 

A prolific format producer, Bagshaw was previously East Coast head of Bunim Murray Productions, Head of International Programming for The Tinopolis Group’s Mentorn and Entertainment Executive for Australia’s Channel Nine and BBC Worldwide. He serves on BAFTA’s US Board of Directors and is based in Los Angeles, California.

ABOUT MRC LIVE & ALTERNATIVE

MRC Live & Alternative, a division of global entertainment company MRC, is the world's largest producer and proprietor of televised live event entertainment programming with the “Academy of Country Music Awards,” “American Music Awards,” “Billboard Music Awards,” “Golden Globe Awards,” “Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest,” “So You Think You Can Dance,” and the “Streamy Awards.” MRC Live & Alternative owns one of the world's most extensive and unique entertainment archive libraries with more than 60 years of award-winning shows, historic programs, specials, performances and legendary programming. For more information please visit: www.mrcentertainment.com.