Ant and Dec’s Mitre Studios bolsters its TV and podcast teams with senior hires

Ed Daggett, left, and Jemima Rathbone

Former Tiger Aspect executive Ed Daggett has been appointed to the role of head of development, television, at Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly’s prodco Mitre Studios, while Jemima Rathbone has been named senior executive producer, podcasts.

The hires aim to bolster the London-based company’s content slate across broadcast, digital and emerging platforms.

Daggett will lead Mitre’s development team and be responsible for creating a pipeline of shows across entertainment, fact ent and reality.

He joins from Lifted Entertainment, where he served as a development executive working across shows such My Mum, Your Dad, The Neighbourhood, and as a senior producer on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

Prior to that, Daggett worked at Hungry Bear Media, working as a producer on the first three series of Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. He also held development roles at both Tiger Aspect and Talkback Thames.

Rathbone, meanwhile, will head up Mitre’s newly established podcasting team as the outfit expands its digital and audio content offering. She will oversee the creative and editorial development of podcast series Hanging Out with Ant & Dec and grow Mitre’s slate of audio-first content for Belta Box.

She joins from reality star Jamie Laing’s JamPot Productions, where she headed up shows including NearlyWeds and launched the celebrity interview podcasts Great Company and Paloma Faith’s Mad, Sad and Bad.

Prior to that, Rathbone launched Kathy Burke’s venture in podcasting on Where There’s a Will There’s a Wake, for Sony Music Entertainment.

Daggett said: “Ant and Dec’s drive to keep finding new ways to entertain big audiences, on any platform, makes Mitre an incredibly exciting place to be. With a huge year already ahead for the company, I can’t wait to work with the whole team to create ambitious and original formats for TV and beyond.”

Rathbone said: “I’m incredibly excited to be joining Mitre at such an exciting moment; to be bringing Ant & Dec into the podcasting space is a real honour.  The show itself is full of heart and belly laughs and is a fantastic example of the type of content you can expect to see and hear coming from Mitre over the next year.”