Deborah Turness Lands at Independent Talent Group to Launch New Studio
Deborah Turness, the former chief of NBC News and BBC News, is joining Independent Talent Group to launch a creative studio, according to Deadline.
Turness will serve as President of Independent Talent Studio, where she will focus on building media brands, franchises and intellectual property around creative talent. The role moves her from the newsroom into the talent-representation business, a shift that puts a seasoned broadcasting executive inside one of Britain's prominent talent agencies.
Her appointment comes roughly nine months after she exited BBC News in November 2025. Her departure followed a scandal in which a BBC programme edited footage of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump, prompting Trump to sue the British public broadcaster. The same controversy also led to the exit of Tim Davie, who was Director General of the BBC at the time, Deadline reported.
Turness's career in television news spans more than a decade at the top of two of the world's most-watched news organisations. In May 2013, NBC announced that Turness, then the editor of British ITV News, would become president of NBC News starting that August, NPR reported. She was the first woman to lead the NBC News division. In January 2022, the BBC appointed her chief executive of BBC News and Current Affairs, a role in which she oversaw the broadcaster's global news operations, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
What stands out about the new role is the pivot it represents. Turness spent her career commissioning and overseeing news coverage — deciding which stories reached audiences and how. At Independent Talent Studio, the focus shifts to building commercial properties around creative people rather than reporting on the world's events.
Independent Talent Group is a London-based agency whose clients work across film, television and theatre. The new studio arm signals an ambition to go beyond representing actors and writers, into developing media brands and franchises that can be sold to platforms and broadcasters.
No launch date for specific projects has been announced.
