Netflix is raising the bar for factual to premium levels and introducing ‘box sets’ and ‘binge-watching’ into commissioning vocabulary, all while growing traditional broadcasters’ budgets and ambitions for documentary. Tim Dams reports. Netflix has famously spent its way into the homes of viewers around the world by backing original dramas such as The Crown, 13 […]
Broadcaster UKTV and producer Endemol Shine Group are looking to reinvent their brands in northern England. The businesses have revealed they are opening shop in Leeds – which is north of Manchester and Sheffield in the county of Yorkshire – just a week after Channel 4 unveiled the city as the base for its national […]
Former BBC channel controller Kim Shillinglaw has hired BBC formats and features commissioning boss Donna Clark to run Darlow Smithson. Former BBC Two and Four chief Kim Shillinglaw became director of factual at Endemol Shine UK last year, having left the UK pubcaster amid its restructuring. She has now brought in ex-colleague Clark (left) who […]
Sigourney Weaver will narrate a new Nat Geo series about Dian Fossey, the naturalist whose life story was told in the Hollywood movie Gorillas in the Mist. Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist will be produced by Endemol Shine prodco Tigress. Man on Wire exec producer James Marsh is also on board. Weaver, who played […]
Long-serving BBC executive Emma Swain is the latest high-profile programming executive to exit the UK pubcaster. Swain (pictured) has been with the BBC for 20 years. She was most recently controller of factual commissioning until being seconded to an internal role as BBC Television director of future commissioning, channels and online. This future-gazing post saw […]
Former BBC Two and Four chief Kim Shillinglaw has been appointed director of factual at Endemol Shine UK. Shillinglaw left the BBC earlier this year amid a restructure at the UK pubcaster and having lost out to Charlotte Moore for the controller, TV channels and iPlayer role. At that point she said: “I’ve loved modernising […]
The BBC has appointed its head of documentaries, Patrick Holland, as channel editor of BBC Two. The UK pubcaster has been searching for an exec to oversee the channel since former BBC Two controller Kim Shillinglaw lost out on the TV channels and iPlayer controller job to Charlotte Moore and subsequently left. Clare Sillery, who […]
The lead BBC exec at motoring series Top Gear is the latest senior staffer to leave the British broadcaster’s new studios arm. Katie Taylor (left), who also oversees Strictly Come Dancing at the UK pubcaster, is leaving her role as head of entertainment, music and events at BBC Studios. News of her departure came on […]
BBC programming chief Charlotte Moore plans to place factual programming at the centre of the BBC Two schedule, as the debate over ‘distinctiveness’ at the UK’s pubcaster rages. Moore recently became controller of BBC TV channels and iPlayer, replacing Kim Shillinglaw at BBC Two, and plans to put factual “proudly at the heart” of the […]
The BBC’s Janice Hadlow has become the second high-ranking channels to leave the UK pubcaster in less than a week. Hadlow was the BBC2 and BBC4 channel controller until early last year when she stepped down to take a newly-created role as controller, special projects and seasons, a position she will now vacate. When she […]
