Channel 4 pledges £50m content investment
Published Jul 27 2010, 14:31 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
© Channel 4
Today, Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham unveiled a new structure for the broadcaster which brings together all commissioning and creative activities into a single cross-platform division.
The broadcaster has also confirmed an additional content investment of £50m for the remainder of 2010 for backing shows like The Million Pound Drop, which successfully mixed broadcast and online activity when it aired in May
Under his new senior management structure, Abraham has established a chief creative officer role combining the duties of head of Channel 4 Julian Bellamy and director of television and content Kevin Lygo, who left recently to join ITV Studios. Bellamy is currently acting as interim CCO, but the role has been advertised to external candidates.
The CCO will have 11 direct reports, including the heads of news and current affairs (Dorothy Byrne), drama (Camilla Campbell), comedy (Shane Allen), entertainment (Justin Gorman), features and factual (Sue Murphy) documentaries (Hamish Mykura), specialist factual (Ralph Lee) and daytime (Helen Warner).
Head of channel management Rosemary Newell will also report to the CCO, with the heads of Channel 4, E4, More4 and Film4 all reporting directly to her.
Channel 4's new head of online Richard Davidson-Houston will take responsibility for all the broadcaster's online propositions and commissions, reporting to the CCO.
His first task will be to undertake a month-long-review of all Channel 4's online activities, including the 4iP and Education teams, to determine an optimum structure going forward.
Stuart Cosgrove has been appointed to the new role of director of creative diversity to help drive commissions from production companies in the Nations and Regions. Channel 4's Cultural Diversity team, Indie Relations, Disability Executive and the Paralympics team will all now report to him.
Abraham said that the new structure is all about preparing Channel 4 to capitalise creatively on the possibilities of emerging converged television platforms, such as IPTV joint venture Project Canvas.
"Channel 4 has always been brilliant at enabling big creative ideas; with the emergence of initiatives such as Canvas we have to ensure these ideas are, from the outset, reaching their fullest expression across all platforms," said Abraham.
"The structure of the new content and commissioning team, which now includes Richard Davidson-Houston as head of online, will empower commissioners at Channel 4 to deliver more content like The Million Pound Drop with multi-platform features at the heart of the offer for our audiences."
