Margaret Ann Loesch () is an American television executive and producer. She is the former President and CEO of

Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chan ...

and

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

Inc's joint venture television network

Hub Network Discovery Family is an American cable television channel co-owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and Hasbro Entertainment. The channel was originally launched by Discovery Communications on October 7, 1996 as Discovery Kids, a spin-off of Discover ...

. On June 12, 2014, she announced that she would step down from her position sometime at the end of that year.

Early life

Margaret Ann Loesch was born to Margaret M. Loesch and Brig. Gen. L. Fred Loesch (USAF). She attended undergraduate school at the

University of Southern Mississippi The University of Southern Mississippi (Southern Miss or USM) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to a ...

, studying political science, and graduate school at Louisiana State University in New Orleans.

Career

In 1971, Loesch started her entertainment career with television programming and production positions at ABC, then in 1979 with NBC. In 1979 she moved to

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

as vice president for children's programming, moving up to executive vice president. In 1984, she joined

Marvel Productions New World Animation Ltd., formerly known as Marvel Productions, was the television and film studio subsidiary of the Marvel Entertainment Group, based in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It later became a subsidiary of New World Entertainmen ...

as president and chief executive officer. Loesch also ran

Fox Kids Fox Kids (originally known as Fox Children's Network and later as the Fox Kids Network; stylized as FOX KIDS) was an American children's programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channels. Originally a jo ...

from 1990 until 1997. During this time she bought the ''X-Men'' TV series and the ''Power Rangers'' franchise (both would prove to be wildly popular) for the network. For most of 1998, Loesch was President of the Jim Henson Television Group, where she was involved in the

Odyssey Channel The Odyssey Channel was a documentary channel that was previously available on Optus Vision in Australia. It was one of the few channels on pay TV in Australia that had a large amount of Australian content available. Due to the CSA (Content Sh ...

agreement with Hallmark Entertainment and National Interfaith Cable Coalition. She moved to Odyssey in November 1998 as president and chief executive officer. With Hallmark taking over a majority ownership in Odyssey, Loesch led a re-branding of Odyssey to the

Hallmark Channel The Hallmark Channel is an American television channel owned by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., which in turn is owned by Hallmark Cards, Inc. The channel's programming is primarily targeted at families, and features a mix of television movies a ...

in 1999. In 2003, Loesch and Bruce Stein formed The Hatchery, a family entertainment and consumer product company. She was hired as

CEO position in July 2009 until the end of 2014. In March 2015, Loesch was named to

Genius Brands Genius Brands International (GBI) is an entertainment company headed by Andy Heyward. The company was formed from the merger of Genius Brands International and A Squared Entertainment. History 2014–2015 Genius Brands International (GBI) was f ...

' international board of directors to replace Jeff Weiss, the president and COO of

American Greetings American Greetings Corporation is a privately owned American company and is the world's second largest greeting card producer behind Hallmark Cards. Based in Westlake, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, the company sells paper greeting cards, electr ...

References

External links

* * American television producers American women television producers Living people University of New Orleans alumni American television executives Women television executives Fox Broadcasting Company executives Year of birth missing (living people) Hanna-Barbera people University of Southern Mississippi alumni 21st-century American women {{US-tv-producer-stub