The Stage

BBC revamps entertainment department to attract more commissions

Published Thursday 13 November 2008 at 12:55 by Matthew Hemley

The BBC has revamped its entertainment department to bring the genre’s in-house production and development teams closer together in a “push for more commissions”.

As part of the restructure, which the BBC said had been implemented “to further build on the success and growth of the area, and to strengthen the relationship between entertainment production and development”, Martin Scott has been appointed as head of format entertainment.

Scott, who is executive producer of Strictly Come Dancing, will be responsible for both developing new programmes and for continuing to deliver “both high profile and high quality format shows”.

Clare Pizey - whose executive producer credits include The Restaurant - becomes head of factual entertainment, while Helen Bullough becomes head of entertainment production in Manchester. She will be responsible for all format and factual entertainment from Manchester including Dragons’ Den, Last Millionaire and Mastermind and will work closely with Scott and Pizey on new developments.

In addition, Mark Cossey has been made executive editor of entertainment and multimedia and will work across the entire entertainment and events slate to look at opportunities for exploiting existing programming and developing new multimedia programming.

Jon Beazley, controller of BBC entertainment and events production, said: “This is a defining moment for entertainment production and development. As the programming slate is constantly growing, the need to look after both production and development becomes even more marked.”