BBC rejigs factual team

The BBC is reshuffling its natural history and specialist factual divisions as part of a restructure of factual commissioning at the UK pubcaster.

Tom McDonald

Tom McDonald will continue to lead the corporation’s natural history and specialist factual departments, but will add oversight of television and online to his remit for natural history, science, religion and ethics across BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4.

McDonald has been the BBC’s head of natural history and specialist factual formats since 2015, when he took over on a permanent basis following Kim Shillinglaw’s appointment as the controller of BBC2 and BBC4.

Meanwhile, Craig Hunter has been named commissioning editor of science and factual, Scotland, while Fatima Salaria has been promoted to commissioning editor for religion and ethics.

Hunter was previously factual commissioning editor for Scotland and was behind series including Big Blue Live and Oak Tree: Nature’s Greatest Survivor. Salaria was previously an assistant commissioner on the BBC content commissioning development programme.

A commissioning editor for history, as well as two commissioning editors working across the whole span of the genre, will be appointed in due course.

The news comes after the BBC appointed Alison Kirkham as its permanent controller of factual commissioning last September.

Kirkham had held the role on an acting basis in place of Emma Swain, who moved to a year-long role as BBC Television’s director of future commissioning, before taking it up on a permanent basis.