TED Community » Juliet Blake

About Me

Juliet has worked in every genre of television and built successful TV franchises in the US and the UK. Most recently as SVP of Production for the National Geographic Channel in Washington DC, Juliet oversaw the development and production of National Geographic Television, National Geographic's in-house production company, which included oversight of a $40+ million budget for the world renown cable network.
Through her tenure at National Geographic, Juliet was responsible for the production of 125 hours of content each year, including the channel’s multi-Emmy award winning program EXPLORER, the longest-running documentary series on cable television.
Juliet also supervised the development and production of BORDER WARS a critically acclaimed rating success now in its fifth season. Her extensive relationships inside the international creative community enabled Juliet to guide the development of many original successes for the network.
From 2004 to 2006, Juliet was SVP of Programming and Development for Scholastic Media in New York and concurrently head of Boston-based animation studio Soup 2 Nuts, a wholly owned subsidiary of Scholastic Inc. At Scholastic, Juliet developed and produced the animated PBS KIDS series WORD GIRL (currently in it’s sixth season).
From 2000 to 2004, Juliet was President of Jim Henson Television in Los Angeles where she was responsible for all prime time and children's television, including global oversight of the Muppet franchise. There Juliet developed and produced the Muppet’s first TV movie: IT’S A VERY MERRY MUPPET CHRISTMAS for NBC starring Whoopi Goldberg, Joan Cusack, David Arquette and William H Macy.
Juliet also oversaw the science fiction series FARSCAPE, the #1 show on the Sci Fi network, executive producing the final 33 episodes of this highly acclaimed award-winning series.
From 1997 to 2000, Juliet served as SVP of Programming for Pearson Television. She was responsible for all prime-time co-productions and EVP of Little Pond Television, a division of Pearson she helped create to develop content for the US and UK market. At Pearson Juliet spearheaded the production of the hit BBC sitcom BEAST written by the award winning writer Simon Nye (MEN BEHAVING BADLY) Juliet retains excellent relationships with writers and content creators on both sides of the pond.
Earlier in her career, she co-owned and operated THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (US and UK), a production company based in London and LA where she produced shows for Comedy Central, VH1, Sci-Fi and MTV and pilots for HBO and FOX.
Juliet is the proud winner of Comedy Central’s first ever award, a Cable ACE for Best Comedy Show for “LONDON UNDERGROUND” starring Denis Leary. She has also developed feature films for Sean Connery and Mike Medavoy's Phoenix Pictures.
In addition Juliet was Senior Producer at London Weekend Television, producing comedy, variety, music and game shows, including the U.K. version of “Saturday Night Live” and a new talent TV show “FIRST EXPOSURE.”
Juliet has a BA in Media Studies from the University of Westminster and a postgraduate degree in journalism from Cardiff University in Wales.
She is currently working for TED to bring TED to TV. Blake is also writing a book about women & management and has film THE HUNDRED FOOT JOURNEY in development with Dreamworks & Harpo Films.
She is married to organic gardener and cook Mark Shepherd. They have two daughters Sophie a web designer in Austin, Texas and Lily, a film & design student at Savannah College of Art & Design.