Plimsoll elevates BBC alum Mark Brownlow to creative director, natural history, as Tom Hugh-Jones exits

Mark Brownlow

ITV Studios-owned factual producer Plimsoll Productions has promoted Mark Brownlow to the role of creative director, natural history.

He will continue to report to Martha Holmes, Plimsoll’s CCO of natural history and science, and succeeds Tom Hugh-Jones in the role, who plans to depart at the end of the year, after being elevated into the role in 2018.

Brownlow joined Plimsoll as an executive producer at the start of the year, after almost three decades at the BBC, where he worked across titles including Frozen Planet II, Blue Planet II, Eden: Untamed Planet and Earth’s Tropical Islands.

After joining Plimsoll, he took the reigns of the upcoming Disney+/National Geographic wildlife series Incredible Animal Journeys.

Bristol-based Plimsoll is currently in production on 20 series, including the Disney+/National Geographic shows The Last Frontier With Alex Honnold and Arctic Ascent With Alex Honnold.

The company recently premiered the James Cameron-executive produced and Benedict Cumberbatch-narrated Super/Natural for National Geographic and Disney+, as well as A Year On Planet Earth for ITV and Fox Nation. Other recent productions include Animal for Netflix, The Women Of 9/11 for ABC, Tiny World for Apple TV+ and Malika The Lion Queen for Fox.

“Since joining the company less than a year ago, Mark has become an invaluable part of our team, inspiring us to stretch our limits even further through his unparalleled expertise and access in the natural history space,” said Holmes.

Brownlow’s promotion follows the recent appointment of former Pioneer Productions exec Elly Steinberg to lead Plimsoll’s history and science output, also reporting to Holmes.

The firm also struck an unlikely partnership with US-based horror producer Blumhouse in July that will see the two companies working together on a new factual show. Nightmares Of Nature explores how animal “battle to survive the true-life horrors only real nature can provide” using a narrative lens to tell the story.