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Kate Phillips named BBC’s director of unscripted in commissioning shake-up

Entertainment commissioning chief Kate Phillips will take on the newly created role of director of unscripted at the BBC following a restructure of the UK pubcaster’s senior leadership team.

Kate Phillips

Phillips is currently director of entertainment commissioning, a department she has led for five years, and has previously held roles including controller of BBC One, channel executive for BBC One and Three and creative director of formats for BBC Worldwide.

The new structure will bring together all of the corporation’s commissioning teams across entertainment, factual, arts and classical music and daytime, early peak and events into a single commissioning unit under Phillips.

As the director of unscripted, she will be responsible for the overall commissioning strategy for the full range of unscripted content and report to chief content officer Charlotte Moore.

The changes will mean the end of the director of entertainment and director of factual, arts and classical music roles and the creation of a new head of entertainment commissioning position.

The heads of commissioning who will report to Phillips are Suzy Klein (arts and classical music), Lindsay Bradbury (daytime, early peak and events), Clare Sillery (documentaries, history and religion), Jack Bootle (natural history and science) and Catherine Catton (popular factual and factual entertainment). The new head of commissioning for entertainment post is being advertised.

Charlotte Moore

Fiona Campbell, who had been leading the unscripted department on an acting basis since head of factual, arts and classical music Patrick Holland left for Banijay, will return to her role as BBC Three controller. The director roles for comedy, drama and film remain unchanged.

Moore said: “Kate is an outstanding leader and manager with an exemplary track record in commissioning, working with suppliers and talent, and she understands the critical and complex role unscripted plays on both iPlayer and the channels. By bringing the genres together as a single team, she will streamline development to empower our world-class team of commissioners to achieve even greater creative excellence.”

Phillips added: “I’m really looking forward to working closely with our extremely talented heads and their teams to ensure we continue to commission innovative, impactful and distinctive content for BBC audiences across the UK. This new role will allow our unscripted teams to not only do their best work creatively, but also collaborate more with each other, leading to exciting opportunities for all our on- and off-screen talent.”

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