Alex Breingan

Breingan was born in Lyme Regis in the United Kingdom, and educated at Woodroffe School and Durham University.^[2] He is married to former Three News reporter and food blogger Rachel Hart.^[2][3]

He began his career in the mid 1990s in UK commercial radio and later as a producer at the BBC before moving to NZ in 2002.^[4] He spent 10 years in NZ radio including as Mediawork's Radio Operations Manager and Assistant Programme Director for both More FM and RadioLIVE.^[5] Breingan then moved into TV as Channel Manager for SKY TV's Food TV and The Living Channel.^[5][6]

In 2012 Breingan co-founded free to air TV channel Choice TV which launched on Freeview and Sky that year. Canadian Media company Blue Ant Media acquired the channel in 2014. Discovery Inc. later acquired Choice TV in 2019.^[4][7][8]

In TV production, Breingan established production company Stripe Media in 2014, also known as Stripe Studios. The production company produced various television shows across New Zealand including the TV3 morning series, The Cafe^[9][10][11] which aired from 2016 until 2020.

Stripe Studios production includes series previously on SKY Open New Zealand, Discovery Australia New Zealand, TVNZ and NBCU NZ for the channel Bravo. Breingan created, co-wrote and produced The Circus, Rich Listers, and Discovery's Great Southern Truckers.^[12] Rich Listers received criticism after Breingan publicly mentioned that the show was fictional.^[13] Other series include Izzy & Beaver's French Connection,^[14] Snow Crew,^[15][16] Reunited^[17][18] and Clubhouse Rescue.^[19]

Since 2019, Breingan has been a semi finals judge for the International Emmy Awards and later a finals judge from 2022.^[20][21]

In Film, Breingan is Executive Producer of The Tank,^[22][23] Never Look Away,^[24]The Lie^[25] and A Mistake.^[26]

In February 2024 reports from the NZ Herald emerged that Stripe Studios had failed to pay post-production companies and visiting actors for their work.^[27][28] In March 2024 one of the company's production entities, Stripe Studios (Comedy) Ltd was liquidated by the court,^[28] and Stripe Media went into voluntary receivership,^[29][30] with a receivers report claiming over $20 million of debt.^[31] Breingan has claimed that a U-turn decision by the New Zealand Film Commission was a cause for the financial issues which they have denied.^[31] Breingan has also stated that such allegations were false and defamatory, claiming that the NZ Herald was provided with false information.^[32]

In December 2023, two days before the liquidation application was made, Breingan registered a film company in the UK, Loveday films.^[33] The company's website was taken down after it was shared by New Zealand media.^[34] Breingan also registered another film company, SNB film in February 2024.^[35]

In May 2024 under a new alias AJ James, Breingan sought to raise $10,000 over Kickstarter for a documentary film about the English singer Tony Hadley.^[36] The Kickstarter campaign was cancelled after being mentioned in the NZ Herald.^[36]

• Alex Breingan at IMDb