The Stage

Keating appointed BBC2 controller

Published Friday 14 May 2004 at 12:00

BBC4 controller Roly Keating will succeed Jane Root as the new controller of BBC2, it was announced today.

He will take over next month from Root, who quit last month to become the general manager of the Discovery Channel in Washington.

BBC director of television Jana Bennett, who made the appointment, said: “I can’t think of anyone who could more brilliantly articulate why BBC2 has a special place at the heart of our national life than Roly Keating.

“He has an obsessive commitment to talent, on and off screen, and combines showmanship with energy and curiosity.”

Keating was appointed controller of BBC4 in December 2001 and led the launch of the channel in March 2002. He is credited with building a good reputation and audience for the station, which has proved more popular than digital youth channel BBC3.

His biggest success so far has been The Alan Clark Diaries, which premiered on BBC4 earlier this year and attracted its highest-ever viewing figures, with 840,000 tuning in to the first episode.

The BBC was criticised when the station first launched for shifting all of its arts programming to the digital broadcaster, which fewer than half the population could receive. However, BBC4 has since been used to develop programmes for the main terrestrial channels.

Keating said: “BBC2 is the channel of record for British culture and being asked to take leadership of it is a huge honour and frankly a bit daunting. But I am also incredibly excited - it is a channel I’ve grown up with and, like millions of other people, it has given me some of my most memorable viewing experiences.”

Keating joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1983. He went on to make films for Omnibus, Bookmark and Arena and was a founder producer and subsequently editor of the influential arts and media magazine programme The Late Show.

In 1999 he was made controller of digital channels and the following year he took an additional role of head of arts commissioning.

Other names on the shortlist were Talkback editorial director Daisy Goodwin, BBC head of entertainment Wayne Garvie and BBC3 controller Stuart Murphy.