Former CW unscripted chief Betsy Slenzak to lead originals at View TV Studios

Betsy Slenzak has been named senior vice-president, original content at View TV Studios.

The appointment was reported by Deadline on 30 September 2026. She will report to Simon Knight, chief executive of the studio arm. Her brief is to scale original production and commission original programming.

Commissioning means choosing which ideas get ordered to series. Scaling means increasing the number of hours that get made. In this case, Slenzak will oversee around 250 hours of production, according to the report.

The senior vice-president title sits just below the top executive level. It usually means day-to-day control of a department and its slate. Here that slate is episodic series rather than one-off films.

Slenzak arrives with a background in unscripted television. Unscripted is the industry term for shows built around real people, competitions and formats rather than scripted drama. Before The CW, she was vice-president of entertainment unscripted content at NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

She joined The CW as vice-president of unscripted programming in March 2023. The US broadcast network is owned by Nexstar Media Group. At the network she developed new alternative reality programming and ran current production on existing shows. Current production means looking after series after they have been ordered and are on air.

She left The CW at the end of 2024 as part of layoffs. The departure closed a two-year run that began with the March 2023 hire.

View TV is a connected TV company. That means it delivers channels and services over the internet to smart TVs and streaming devices rather than through cable or satellite. It acquired Knight Vision Studios, the production company founded by former Maverick TV boss Simon Knight, as reported by Deadline.

Knight was then appointed chief executive of View TV Studios, according to C21Media. The studio arm is focused on episodic television, meaning series made in multi-episode runs. The acquisition was completed in September 2025, a year before Slenzak's appointment.

Slenzak previously appeared as a speaker at Realscreen West 2023, the industry event for unscripted and factual television.

For viewers, these behind-the-scenes moves decide what gets ordered, what gets made and what eventually reaches the screen. A 250-hour order book is a large workload for a new studio group. It will require multiple production teams working across different series at once.