1 December 2015
Award-winning broadcaster, UKTV, today announced a new member of its senior leadership team, Samantha Hammonds.
To support UKTV's rapid growth, the media company has created the new role of General Counsel, in which Hammonds will lead all legal and business affairs operations.
Hammonds joins with a wealth of experience, including 17 years at Sky, where she was most recently Head of Legal for Content and Copyright. In that role, she oversaw the growth in the broadcaster's content business and expansion of commissioning, production and distribution businesses, as well as the renewal of Sky's major acquisition deals from all the major Studios.
Hammonds, who is a board member of Women in Film and Television, will provide a proactive legal service to UKTV, helping the business execute its commercial and corporate strategy, protect its intellectual property rights and minimise legal risk.
UKTV's CEO, Darren Childs, said,
UKTV continues to grow across all platforms, and we're setting our ambitions higher than ever. Samantha is hugely experienced and the perfect legal lead for our next phase of growth. She will equip us with the very best legal expertise in all areas including intellectual property rights and platform carriage relationships, particularly as UKTV creates more of its own original content and is regularly launching on new platforms.
Hammonds added,
I am excited to be joining UKTV in this new role on UKTV's executive leadership team. UKTV are an innovative and inspiring company with an inclusive and forward-thinking culture. Their commitment to investing in strong brands and great programming is impressive and I am delighted to be heading up one of the best legal and business affairs teams in the industry.
Having graduated from Oxford University with a degree in PPE, Hammonds attended Guildford College of Law and trained with Media law specialists, Goodman Derrick.
She joins UKTV in January and will report directly to the CEO, Darren Childs.
UKTV, which reported record-breaking viewing figures and revenue in its most recent annual results, now accounts for over 9% of all advertising impacts in Britain.
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For more information contact:
Kerry Parker, Head of Network Communications
Lara Feinstein, Corporate Communications Executive
About UKTV
UKTV is the multi-award winning media company that reaches 42 million viewers a month.
UKTV's eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, Watch, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food - include the most popular non-PSB channel in the UK and account for 9% of the British commercial TV market. The company's most recent financial results showed record-breaking year-end revenue of £283m and EBITDA of £74.1m. It invested £123m in programming and related launches last year, and is becoming an increasingly significant investor in UK creativity.
UKTV has a truly innovative model, curating brand-defining commissions, high-profile acquisitions and the very best of BBC, alongside programmes originally shown on ITV and Channel 4. The network embraces technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating its 22nd year at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the only British television broadcaster to be recognised by Best Companies.