EXCLUSIVE: Peter Traugott, a veteran TV executive with more than three decades of experience, is departing Keshet Studios where he has been President since the company’s 2015 launch, sources tell Deadline. He is expected to be named President of TV for indie studio Fifth Season. Traugott’s hire will become official once his exit from Keshet is finalized, I hear.
At Fifth Season, Traugott will fill a top TV position that had been vacant since the Sept. 2024 exit of then-TV President Joe Hipps who has since set up shop as a producer at A24.
Fifth Season’s executive search kicked into high gear after co-CEO Chris Rice, who has TV background, announced in late September that he would be leaving his post at the end of 2025. The company was expected to bring in a senior TV executive under CEO Graham Taylor, who comes from film background.
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Traugott, whose long-standing relationship with Keshet is expected to continue after he transitions out of his current role, will be replaced.
Keshet International, the global distribution and production arm of Israel’s Keshet Media Group, formed the U.S.-based Keshet Studios with Traugott at the helm, in 2015. After its inception, Keshet Studios found home at Universal Television where it was based for about a decade under first-look deals that yielded such series as La Brea on NBC, The Baker and The Beauty on ABC, The Brave on NBC, and Wisdom of the Crowd on CBS as well as Keshet 12’s Series Mania–winning relationship drama A Body That Works.
Over the past 10 years, Keshet Studios also has produced and co-produced notable projects outside of the Universal TV partnership, including Echo 3 on Apple TV, Our Boys on HBO, Snap original Dead Girls Detective Agency and the Emmy-nominated A Small Light for Nat Geo and Disney+.
As Deadline reported, Keshet Studios has a new studio home after its parent, Keshet International, last month entered into a multi-year, first-look deal with Sony Pictures Television. Under the pact, Sony TV will partner with Keshet Studios on English-language adaptations of titles from Keshet International’s scripted catalog, starting with Save the Date, as well as original scripted series.
Prior to Keshet, Traugott founded TBD Entertainment, which had an overall deal at Universal TV. Before that, he spent 15 years at Brillstein Grey Entertainment where he served as VP and subsequently President of Television during a prolific period for the company that included such series as The Sopranos, NewsRadio, and According to Jim. Earlier in his career, Traugott was Director of Current Programming for Fox.
Fifth Season’s current TV slate includes Apple TV’s award-winning drama Severance and the Jason Momoa-led Chief of War; His & Hers, starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal, which debuts today on Netflix; the upcoming East of Eden, starring Florence Pugh, also for Netflix; and The Good Daughter, starring Meghann Fahy and Rose Byrne, for Peacock. The TV division’s list of talent deals include Jessica Chastain’s Freckle Films, Beau Willimon’s Westward Production, Amy Adams’ Bond Group, and Ozark creator Bill Dubuque.