EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a big one out of Australia.
Former Binge content chief Alison Hurbert-Burns, who commissioned Colin From Accounts, is teaming with Bruna Papandrea and Steve Hutensky‘s Made Up Stories to launch a production business.
Respected Australian commissioner Hurbert-Burns will be CEO of The Set Up, with Papandrea and Hutensky joining her as co-founders, we can reveal. Made Up Stories execs Casey Haver, Jeanne Snow and Katie Amos will round out the leadership team.
The plan is for The Set Up to package premium series with IP, talent and financing out of Australia and sell them to broadcasters and streamers in the country and internationally.
The new-look management team already has a close-knit relationship. Papandrea produced record-setting drama Strife and Liane Moriarty adaptation The Last Anniversary for Hurbert-Burns when she was leading Aussie streamer Binge.
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Made Up Stories will continue to build a slate of TV and film projects in the U.S. and internationally, while Sydney-based label The Set Up will focus purely on Australian titles, “pairing a commissioner’s eye for what audiences want with world-class producing at the source of some of the most distinctive stories, talent and locations in the world,” the founders said in a statement.
Hurbert-Burns is known for launching Foxtel SVoD Binge and overseeing its slate, commissioning the likes of Colin From Accounts, Mix Tape and The Twelve. She exited the DAZN-owned Foxtel in 2025 after six years at the helm as Executive Director for Commissioning and Content, during which time she ordered 25 original series. Further back, she worked in content acquisitions for Nine Network and its streamers 9Now and Stan.
“Alison is that rare combination — a true tastemaker and a brilliant operator — and one of the most highly regarded people in the Australian TV industry. Teaming up with her is a dream,” said Papandrea and Hutensky. “Australian creatives and stories are world-class, and the opportunity to produce a slate of shows that resonate both locally and globally is incredibly exciting. We’re passionate about bringing top Australian television to audiences everywhere.”
Made Up Stories is one of the better known production companies born out of Australia, and is behind the likes of HBO’s Big Little Lies and The Undoing, Hulu’s Nine Perfect Strangers, Prime Video Australia’s The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and Peacock’s The Good Daughter. On the film front, it produced The Dry, which is one of Australia’s highest-grossing pics, its sequel The Dry 2 and Addition, which released this year.
Hurbert-Burns added: “Bruna, Steve and the Made Up Stories team are simply the best in the business at making television the world wants to watch — and this new company is a business and creative partnership in every sense.
“We’re bringing a commissioner’s lens and a targeted approach to our slate, finding stories that travel across borders and appeal to broad audiences. Having been on the buying side, I appreciate that streamers and broadcasters need reliable, consistent access to highly engaging, premium-quality content in a landscape that’s changing fast.”
