Amazon Studios has hired Variety’s Executive TV Editor Debra Birnbaum as awards campaign director, the studio announced on Monday.
Birnbaum will oversee all aspects of the awards campaigns for Amazon’s film and TV divisions. She will report to Mike Benson, Amazon’s marketing director.
Birnbaum is entering the awards business after more than 20 years in Hollywood entertainment and trade reporting. Prior to her tenure at Variety, she served as president and editor-in-chief of TV Guide Magazine.
Amazon Studios became the first streaming media service to win a Golden Globe earning the top prize for Best TV Musical or Comedy in 2015 for “Transparent” and doing so again a year later with “Mozart in the Jungle.” Amazon also became the first streaming studio to release a film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar with “Manchester By The Sea,” which won Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Most recently, the studio came away with eight Emmys this year thanks to the comedy “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
