Channel 4 comedy head Charlie Perkins, entertainment chief Steve Handley exiting

Channel 4 head of comedy Charlie Perkins and head of entertainment Steve Handley are leaving the UK broadcaster.

Charlie Perkins

Perkins will leave C4 at the end of the year. She joined C4 from UK indie Blink Industries in late 2022 and went on to commission titles including Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping, Break Clause, Pushers, Make That Movie and It Gets Worse.

Her forthcoming commissions include Josh Pugh sitcom Stepping Up, Katy Wix’s debut series Pigeon, school sitcom The Academy and the second season of Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping.

She has also led the broadcaster’s First for Funny campaign, which has forged links with emerging comedians from across the UK and spans its comedy, digital and entertainment commissioning departments.

Handley, meanwhile, joined C4’s entertainment team in 2018, becoming head of the department in 2024. Among the titles he has overseen are Late Night Lycett, Taskmaster and Boys to Men. Upcoming commissions include the travelogue featuring Inbetweeners stars Joe Thomas and James Buckley.

Steve Handley

A reduction in commissioning roles is a key part of the major restructure underway at C4, led by CEO Priya Dogra.

The broadcaster is merging its drama and comedy commissioning units into a single scripted commissioning team as part of the major reduction in its workforce, with 340 roles being cut in the biggest round of redundancies in its 43-year history.

C4 is now looking to fill the newly created roles of head of scripted and head of unscripted, which will sit under incoming director of programmes David Brindley, who joins in January 2027 and succeeds Ian Katz.

Brindley, who will also become an executive member of the C4 board, will have full commissioning and editorial responsibility for C4’s programming across scripted and unscripted.