Developing original series for Microsoft has taken a little longer than veteran TV executive Nancy Tellem had hoped, but her first slate of shows will launch on the Xbox videogame consoles early next year. “We’re hoping we will be able to put something up in the first quarter, at minimum second quarter,” said Tellem, president of entertainment and digital for Microsoft, at Variety’s Dealmakers Breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. “I’m incredibly ambitious and impatient,” said Tellem, who took the job to produce original content for the Xbox platform in 2012. Because of that, the time it’s taken to develop the first slate of series, including a high-profile project based around “Halo,” with Steven Spielberg producing, has been “slower,” but “reflecting on what we’ve done and what lies ahead, it’s been pretty good.” Tellem was attracted to joining Microsoft after spending years at CBS and the CW, closely monitoring how content was changing websites and how millennials interact with it. “I was always looking for the next...

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