Hot 100 2012 COMMISSIONERS


Grimm


she’s looked to UKTV’s nostalgic strengths by reviving Yes, Prime Minister and The Comic Strip. Watch has undergone a gear change, with Tennant fighting off competition for star talent Dynamo and grabbing big ratings for Grimm and Alcatraz. A bulk factual and lifestyle output agreement with Channel 4 has further bolstered UKTV’s original orders. Aggressive expansions into VoD and shifting lifestyle channel Really onto Freeview have helped shore up the busi- ness strategically.


12 Kay Benbow Controller, CBeebies 11 Hamish Mykura


Executive vice-president and head of international content, NGCI


Nat Geo has turned to former Channel 4 head of documen- taries Hamish Mykura to ramp up its output, and he has already shuffled his commissioners and drafted in former C4 col- league Jules Oldroyd to help him. His mission is to shift content away from “old style” nature programmes, young adventurers or short-run docs, in favour of long-running factual entertainment formats that can play around the world. He’s promising terrestrial-sized budgets and flexibility on rights – a strategy not dissimilar to Discovery’s, and one that sets up the intriguing prospect of Mykura and former boss Julian Bellamy going head to head in a major factual battle.


8 | Broadcast | Hot 100


CBeebies picked up Best Children’s Channel at the Broadcast Digital Awards last month thanks to its ability to constantly reinvent the pre- school genre. Over the past year, Benbow, who has been with the channel since its launch 10 years ago, has continued to wear the channel’s public service creden- tials lightly but responsibly, with shows on a ‘love to learn’ theme and animation Tree Fu Tom, which encourages movements based on techniques that help children with dyspraxia. She’s an ambassador for cross-fertilisation within the BBC, from the NHU archive-based Andy’s Wild Adven- tures to a Strictly Come Dancing- based panto and ever-greater efforts to offer more online. CBeebies now reaches 49.3% of the target age group each week. Benbow is also commended for her commitment to British ani- mation with the likes of Rasta- mouse and Abney & Teal.


Junior Doctors


Howard’s Good News for BBC3, but it was Junior Doctors: Your Life In Their Hands that really cut through, later winning a BBC1 slot. Warner worked well with Danny Cohen at BBC3 and, with the latter’s move to BBC1, Warn- er’s fingerprints are increasingly apparent on commissions on the flagship channel. With the much- anticipated Muppets-style show No Strings Attached coming up, Warner seems primed to become one of the industry’s top enter- tainment commissioners.


likes of Frozen Planet. But her role is much more than that, having taken on responsibility for the BBC’s 3D experimentation last year. Since taking up the reins, Shillinglaw has given the trial more focus, and has already ordered a number of pilots – including the UK’s first long- form scripted 3D comedy.


15 David Glover 14 Kim Shillinglaw


Commissioning editor for science and natural history, BBC


13 Karl Warner


Executive editor, entertain- ment commissioning, BBC


As one of the BBC’s up-and- coming commissioners, Warner has already been linked with a number of high-profile series, proving his ability to sniff out the successful shows. He has won plaudits for his commission of Undercover Princes and Russell


Kim Shillinglaw is about as far from the stereotype of a BBC commissioner as you can get: enthusiastic, uncensored and jar- gon-free, she admits the failings of the wider corporation as readily as she talks about hopes for the future. Under her aegis, the BBC’s science and natural history output, particularly Wonders Of The Solar System and Stargazing Live, has caused tele- scope sales to rocket. She has made practical science more accessible with Bang Goes The Theory, and won awards with the


Commissioning editor, science, Channel 4


David Glover is the man behind Drugs Live, Plane Crash, Werner Herzog’s Death Row and Inside Nature’s Giants. Unlike many com- missioners, Glover stares risk in the eye and laughs. His ideas are ambitious, grand and memorable. The Bafta- and RTS Award-win- ning Mummifying Alan took years to make, but Glover is the kind of commissioner who commits to an idea despite any hurdles that may have to be overcome. His stance of looking for standout ideas often resonates with the core principles of Channel 4 – risk- taking, innovating and providing a new perspective. It is the added edge that comes with Glover’s orders that makes him one of the most exciting commissioners of the moment.


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