BBCWW raids Seven West for commercial chief

The BBC’s commercial arm in Australasia has hired the founder of Seven West Media’s live events division as its commercial director.

Dustin Lockett (pictured) will join BBC Worldwide ANZ to oversee local activity of brands such as Doctor Who, Sherlock and BBC Earth. It is a new role.

This comes soon after BBCWW ANZ restructured its sales team under director of content sales Irene Read, with Deborah Tod taking up a new post as head of content sales for Australia, and Sam Stacey handed a new post as format sales manager.

Lockett will work closely with BBCWW ANZ managing director Jon Penn and the wider executive team to drive business strategy in Australia and New Zealand.

He joins from RED Live, which is a live events unit of Seven Network parent SWM. There he produced live shows such as Ghost The Musical and The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Before that, he was VP, live events at FremantleMedia.

“Dustin has the experience and entrepreneurial flair to build our new areas of business and maximise the commercial value of our brands,” said Penn. “He has worked on some of the biggest events in Australia, across the spectrum of commercial development, and I am delighted that he will be joining us to help deliver this strategic priority.”

Yesterday, Seven revealed it had bought into a production company from the BBC’s home, the UK. It has taken an undisclosed stake in drama producer Slim Film + Television.