Maria Knight

Maria Knight was the Production Executive, HISTORY Channel, for Corus Entertainment. In her role, she was responsible for a slate of Canadian original series including: Rust Valley Restorers, Big Timber, Backroad Truckers, Salvage Kings, the new series, Deadman’s Curse and the documentary special, Our War.

Maria joined Corus in 2022 after spending her career as an independent series producer and director in both Toronto and Los Angeles. She produced a number of factual series including Cold Water Cowboys (Discovery), Deep Water Salvage (Smithsonian/Weather Channel US), Mutant Weather (National Geographic), Who Do You Think You Are? (TLC), Restaurant Start-Up (CNBC) and Make It to the Moon: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo 11 (Discovery and CTV), which earned a 2020 Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best History Documentary.

Prior to becoming an independent producer, Maria began her career in the CBC Documentary Production Unit, where she produced a number of internationally award winning documentaries such as, Marketing the Monarchy, My Life After 9/11 and Love, Hate and Propaganda: The War on Terror.

I have over 20 years of experience in television production programming, creating content, as well as a strong background in implementing operational procedures, supervising the daily running of production and facilitating an environment of teamwork and collaboration. I approved policies and the thoughtful hiring of staff (producers, writers, editors, directors and support positions) with the key goal of creating teams that were aligned and set up to succeed. In addition to being the creative authority over story development, process and final execution, my role as an executive and showrunner required me to have exceptional communication and organizational skills (as there were often uniquely complex logistics associated with my projects). 

Education:

B.Mus. Perf., University of Toronto

Professional Training                              

Surviving Hostile Regions, AKE 

Writing for Documentaries, CBC Training

Doc Proposal Writing: DOC/CIFA

Television Production: Ryerson University

                                                Writing for Television: Ryerson University

                                                Writing for TV Sitcoms: Ryerson University