The Stage

Keating leaves BBC2 to lead archive content division

Published Tuesday 22 July 2008 at 13:00 by Matthew Hemley

BBC2 controller Roly Keating is to leave the channel and become the Corporation’s first director of archive content.

Keating, who has been controller of BBC2 for four years, will take up his new post in October. He will report to director of BBC Vision Jana Bennett.

In his new role, he will be responsible for developing and implementing a pan-BBC strategy aimed at growing access to the Corporation’s archive. He will work alongside newly-appointed director of future media and technology Erik Huggers to “set the editorial and strategic priorities for archive digitisation and public access to programme information”.

He will also have editorial responsibility for the release and management of catch-up and archive content on platforms such as the BBC iPlayer and other on-demand services.

BBC director general Mark Thompson said: “The BBC has the largest audio-visual archive in the world. We want to make sure there is greater public access to this archive, whilst also ensuring the archive is fully exploited for the benefit of licence payers. Roly is passionate about the potential of the archive and, with his fantastic track record as a programme-maker and channel controller, he is ideally placed to lead this exciting project.”

Keating added: “This is an exciting and daunting challenge, but there’s a really simple idea at its heart - giving people the chance to enjoy and engage with great programmes and content, whenever and wherever they were first broadcast.”

The Corporation said that the post of BBC2 controller will be advertised later in the year.