Senior Vice President, Programming
David Bernath is senior vice president, programming, for COMEDY CENTRAL, a position he has held since January 2005. He is based at the network's New York headquarters and reports to Michelle Ganeless, president, COMEDY CENTRAL.
Bernath oversees COMEDY CENTRAL's program scheduling, promotion scheduling and acquisitions. Among the major series acquisitions he has been responsible for are "Scrubs," "Futurama" and most recently "30 Rock." Bernath also negotiated the deal to bring "Futurama" back with original episodes beginning in 2010 and the groundbreaking deal with Debmar-Mercury and Gary Sanchez Productions in which COMEDY CENTRAL initially ordered 10 episodes of a multi-cam sitcom starring Jon Heder with the option to order an additional 90 episodes upon a successful first-season run.
Bernath is also responsible for scheduling COMEDY CENTRAL's content across all digital platforms (broadband, video-on-demand, iTunes, mobile, pay-per-view) and he plays a large role in the network's long-term strategic planning.
Prior to joining COMEDY CENTRAL, Bernath served as vice president, programming, for BBC AMERICA, which he joined in 2002. He was accountable for programming and scheduling including original production and acquisitions and was instrumental in bringing the original version of "The Office" to the United States, where it received two Golden Globe® Awards and a prestigious Peabody® Award. He joined BBC AMERICA from E! Entertainment Television where as VP of program planning, he was responsible for all program planning and acquisition functions for both E! and the Style Networks. He had been with E! since 1994.
Bernath was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a screenwriter and traveler, and is married with four children.