The Independent Television Service, the organization established by Congress to distribute $6 million in production grants to independent television producers, has selected John Schott as executive director.
Schott who will leave his job as executive producer of Alive from Off-Center, produced by KTCA-TV in St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minn.
Schott, who will be the first director of the fund that opened for business last October, said his duties will include overseeing the organization’s day-to-day operations, helping develop program direction and realizing “the mandate and philosophy” of the ITVS.
The ITVS has a “specific mandate to produce TV programs independent of corporate desirability, independent of an insistence to be broad-based, large number-oriented,” Schott said.
He added that the service has the “potential of breathing new life into TV programming.”
“It’s appealing to me to reinvent the process to keep TV fresh and new,” he added.