Simeon Japhet Asher (born 14 January 1961) is an English film and television producer, writer and director who has worked in the United States for most of his career.
Asher is considered a pioneer in the field of augmented reality storytelling, and has won multiple awards for the books with apps he has developed in this medium.
Between 1995 and 1997, he was the executive vice-president of programming at Tele-TV, an ultimately abortive joint venture by three American telephone companies to provide interactive television, video on demand and internet through customers' phone lines.
"[10] If Charlie Brown moved to New York's East Village, grew a goatee, and started playing bongos in a synth-pop rock band, he still wouldn't be cool enough for Liquid Television, MTV's new weekly half-hour animation series ...
Violently and deliberately different from the rest of the TV schedule,[9] it was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards during its four-year run, winning one, and included as one of its cartoons Æon Flux, directed by Peter Chung with Asher as an executive producer and writer.
"[11] Asher left (Colossal) in November 1995 when he was appointed executive vice-president of programming at the newly set-up Tele-TV network,[12] a joint venture by the Bell Atlantic, NYNEX and Pacific Telesis telephone companies to provide interactive television, video on demand and internet to customers through their copper phone wires,[13] aiming ultimately to compete with cable and satellite providers.
[16] Having relocated back to England, he joined the BBC in the late 2000s as the executive producer for interactive at CBBC, the organisation's children's strand.
With Asher working as one of its executive producers,[17] the CBBC show Big Babies was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Children's Award in 2010 as one of the best comedies.