Tuesday 21 August 2018
UKTV's Director of Commissioning, Richard Watsham, today unveiled a new commissioning structure that prepares the team for continued growth. UKTV's original output has increased by over a third in 2018 versus last year, with over 100 shows in the pipeline across more genres than ever before. The broadcaster has also expanded its co-productions and moved into commissioning drama for the first time.
Senior Commissioning Editors, Pete Thornton and Iain Coyle, have been promoted to Head of Scripted and Head of Comedy Entertainment respectively. Hilary Rosen remains as Richard Watsham's deputy and will lead the third genre team as Head of Factual and Factual Entertainment. Commissioning Editor, Helen Nightingale, has been promoted to Senior Commissioning Editor.
The new structure will enable the team to manage the increased flow of ideas better, respond to pitches quickly and effectively, and ensures that the producers come directly to commissioners with a high level of expertise in their genre.
Richard Watsham said:
We're growing at such a pace and working across so many genres now, that we need to simplify the relationship for producers and get our best expertise focused in the right places. I'm proud to work with such a talented team and thrilled to announce these promotions which reflect their fantastic successes over the last few years.
In the next few months viewers have a plethora of new UKTV Original shows to look forward to, including: Sharon Horgan and Lorna Martin's Women on The Verge; Anna Paquin fronted comedy drama Flack; Death on the Tyne starring Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson; Cherry Healey's Sex Knives & Liposuction; Emma Willis: Delivering Babies; brand new panel show Hypothetical; and VICE Studios' Beat The Internet with John Robins.
For more information, please contact:
Kerry Goode, Head of Network Communications
Ali Laurie, Network Communications Executive
About UKTV
UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching nearly 40m viewers every month.
The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.
The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.
Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Studios and Discovery, Inc. - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.