Lifetime Layoffs Hit Unscripted Team Including Nicole Vogel As Network Focuses On TV Movies
EXCLUSIVE: More bad news for the unscripted television business: Lifetime has cut the majority of its non-scripted team.
The A+E Networks-owned cable network has eliminated a number of positions, thought to be in the single digits, including VP, Programming and Development Nicole Vogel.
It comes a year after the company cut a number of senior figures including Amy Savitsky, who was Lifetime’s SVP Unscripted Development and Programming, and VPs Kim Chessler and Cat Rodriguez.
It also comes less than ten days before its biggest new unscripted launch: The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, which features the formerly incarcerated stars of USA Network’s Chrisley Knows Best.
Vogel is the most senior figure on the unscripted team to be made redundant today. She joined in 2019 from WE TV and has worked on some of its biggest titles including The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, which reached nearly 10M viewers last year.
She also exec produces The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, which was in production when Todd and Julie were pardoned for a series of major financial crimes by President Trump, and Dr. Pimple Popper: Breaking Out, a follow-up series that has just been renewed for a second season after previously airing a similar show on TLC.
“Nicole is one of the best network execs in the entire unscripted business,” one producer told Deadline.
The only remaining member of the unscripted team is now Brie Miranda Bryant, SVP, Original Programming, who has worked on series including Surviving R. Kelly, and will have a challenge on her hands.
The move comes as Lifetime is focusing more on its television movie business. Titles include Girl in the Closet, Girl in the Attic, Girl in the Cellar and Brandy Norwood’s Christmas Everyday.
The network also just launched A Sorority Mom’s Guide to Rush from Vice Studios and recently ordered four-part documentary The Judd Family: Truth Be Told.
It comes seven months after Lifetime lost its unscripted crown jewel when Peacock snapped up the rights to wedding format Married At First Sight, which ran for over 200 episodes across Lifetime and other A+E Networks channels.
It was a major blow for the company, which has shepherded the show in the U.S. for the last ten years. The show, in which couples meet for the first time at the altar, launched on FYI in July 2014. The show started being simulcast on A&E from season two and with season five it moved to Lifetime, where it has aired ever since, through Season 18.
In fact, Lifetime handed the show a six-season order – one of its largest ever orders – in 2020 as well as another spinoff and a blind commitment for another Kinetic project. The show has also had eight spinoffs; Married at First Sight: The First Year, Married Life, Married at First Sight: Second Chances, Jamie and Doug Plus One, Married at First Sight: Honeymoon Island, Married at First Sight: Happily Ever After, Married at First Sight: Couples’ Cam and Married at First Sight: Unmatchables.
