Margaret Loesch
 (Executive Producer)

Margaret A. Loesch is CEO of The Hatchery LLC, a family entertainment company launched in 2003.

Prior to launching The Hatchery, Loesch raised the financing, produced and distributed the fifth theatrical movie in the Benji franchise, Benji Off the Leash!, with creator-director Joe Camp.

Previously, Loesch was the first president and CEO of Crown Media United States and its U. S. Hallmark Channel, a network she built and launched after first restructuring and strengthening its predecessor, the Odyssey Channel. She came to that position after serving as president of Jim Henson Television Group, Worldwide, where, amongst her accomplishments, she supervised the development and production of the award-winning Bear in the Big Blue House and served as its executive producer.

During her tenure at Jim Henson Television Group, Loesch played a key role in the company’s 1998 acquisition of the Liberty Media-owned Odyssey Channel, which she moved over to helm. She is credited with building Odyssey’s programming strategy and ratings, forging a new infrastructure and successfully transitioning Odyssey into Hallmark Channel in 2001. That transformation included successfully securing the rights to the full library of Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes and building an aggressive slate of acquired programming, creating a strategy that enhanced the network’s ratings and garnered substantially increased sales revenue for the network.

From 1990 through 1997, Loesch was the founding president and CEO, as well as the key architect, of Fox Kids Networks, Worldwide. In this role, she reshaped the landscape of children’s television with a creative strategy that merged diversified, quality programming with innovative and aggressive marketing. Her successes at the company include the highly stylized Batman series, Stephen Spielberg’s Animaniacs, Marvel’s X-Men and Spider-Man, and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. She also successfully expanded Fox Kids into Latin America, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Prior to her work for Fox Kids Networks, Loesch was president and CEO of Marvel Productions, the film production arm of Marvel Comics. Under her leadership, Marvel earned dozens of Emmys and other industry honors and their hits included Transformers, G.I. Joe, Muppet Babies and Fraggle Rock.

Loesch’s other positions include serving as executive vice president of Hanna-Barbera and director of children’s programming for NBC. She is a four-time Emmy winner, recipient of a Peabody Award, a Vision Award and the prestigious Chair Award from the Caucus for Television Producers, Writers and Directors. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Sesame Workshop, producers of the long-running series Sesame Street.