CBS Television Studios has a dedicated animation executive for the first time ever.

According to a piece from Deadline, the company’s current Senior Vice President of Comedy Development, Alec Botnick, has been promoted to a new role as SVP Comedy Development and Head of Animation. He will still report to Kate Adler, Executive Vice President of Comedy Development.

The move comes as CBS is expanding its animation efforts. The studio created CBS Eye Animation in late 2018, which will be where Star Trek: Lower Decks will be created, along with the untitled Star Trek animated series destined for Nickelodeon.

Adler said of Botnick’s promotion, “Alec has proven to be a huge asset not only to our department but to the company as a whole. I am constantly impressed by his versatility, character, knowledge of the marketplace and the number of phone calls he can make in one day. Our hope is that with the news of his expanded responsibilities, people will stop calling him ‘Alex.’”

Some of the previous shows that Botnick has supervised while at CBS are: Dead to Me for Netflix; No Activity for CBS All Access; new series The Unicorn for CBS; and the upcoming Diary of a Female President for Disney+.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently in production and expected to premiere in late 2020 at the earliest; just last week Star Trek executive producer Heather Kadin confirmed that the Nickelodeon Star Trek series will not premiere until after 2021.

This article was written for the podcast Daily Star Trek News.

Alison Pitt is the writer, producer, and host of Daily Star Trek News, on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. A veteran Star Trek podcaster, she started her career on the weekly show Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast in 2015. She has appeared on panels at Star Trek Las Vegas, WonderCon, and San Diego Comic Con.