Sam Bickley


BBC Worldwide Showcase: entertainment and formats in the spotlight

Formats are taking centre stage at BBC Worldwide Showcase this year. Tracy Forsyth and Sumi Connock talk about this year’s line-up. “This is our year,” says Tracy Forsyth, director of factual entertainment and entertainment at BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC. “We have a smorgasboard of Saturday night shows, and there’s always demand […]

BBC Studios debuts Auntie Productions

The BBC’s programme-making arm, BBC Studios, has unveiled new division Auntie Productions, which launches with a pair of BBC Two commissions. BBC Studios creative directors Samantha Anstiss and Sam Bickley are leading Auntie – whose title is a homage to an informal and affectionate name for Britain’s public broadcaster. They have hired former Endemol Shine […]

BBC Three factual exec lands new post

BBC Three documentaries executive Sam Bickley has landed a post at Samantha Anstiss’s production division within the BBC’s television operation. Bickley (pictured), who led BBC Three in the interim after Zai Bennett left for Sky Atlantic last year, will become a creative director at the unit, which is billed as an in-house BBC ‘label’ within […]

Bride format leaves BBC Three for BBC One

BBC Three’s key unscripted format Don’t Tell the Bride is moving to BBC One, as the UK’s pubcaster prepares to close Three’s linear feed. The show, which comes from Warner Bros. Productions UK-owned Renegade Pictures, sees grooms given a fixed budget to organise their wedding entirely without the bride’s input. There have been around a […]

Kavanagh named BBC Three online chief

Damian Kavanagh has named as head of the new-look, online-only BBC Three. Kavanagh, currently controller of BBC Daytime at the UK pubcaster the BBC, as been the proposal lead on the controversial move to switch youth-skewed linear channel BBC Three to an online-only service. This week, the BBC formally outlined its proposal, claiming the move […]

BBC Three appoints interim boss

Sam Bickley has been appointed acting channel editor of UK free-to-air channel BBC Three. Bickley will fill the role being vacated by Zai Bennett, who is leaving the UK public broadcaster next month to join pay TV platform BSkyB as director of Sky Atlantic. He announced his departure as BBC Three boss following the news […]

David Beckham, BBC team for Brazil doc

Football icon David Beckham has partnered with BBC Worldwide and UK terrestrial channel BBC One for a 1x90mins doc in which he will experience life in the Brazilian rainforest. Beckham’s management firm XIX Entertainment, which Pop Idol co-creator Simon Fuller runs, is coproducing through its XIX Productions imprint with BBCWW and the BBC. The Beckham […]

BBC Three orders Horsemeat Banquet

BBC Three has ordered The Horsemeat Banquet, a one-off show in which a group of young diners are invited to tuck into a variety of horse dishes. The show will TX on the UK public broadcaster’s youth channel in a 10pm slot on March 27. It will be made by Shine-owned producer Dragonfly. The show, […]