THE production arm at STV has announced changes within its executive team.
STV Productions’ recent credits includes Fast Freddie for ITV1 and DNA Stories and Missing Mums for Sky Real Lives. The other week, it was announced it had been commissioned to make an entertainment series, Perez Hilton Super Fan, for ITV2.
The changes come as the company tighten up their top team after the previous head of entertainment, Paul Murray, left to join Objective Productions in June.
New to STV Production’s executive team – which already includes deputy head of content, Liam Hamilton, and head of drama, Margaret Enefer – are Gary Chippington, Wendy Rattray and Michael McAvoy.
In a media release issued by STV, Alan Clements, director of content, is quoted, as saying: “Gary’s appointment and the promotion of Wendy and Michael significantly strengthens the top team at STV Productions and provides a great platform for us to achieve our aim of doubling our turnover by 2015.”
Gary Chippington, whose credits include Argumental, Bill Bailey’s Comics Choice and Piers Morgan’s You Can’t Fire Me I’m Famous, joins STV as the new head of entertainment from his own production company, Electric Eel Media.
Wendy Rattray and Michael McAvoy have both been promoted to new titles which more clearly define their pre-existing roles within STV Productions.
Rattray, who was responsible for STV Productions’ Antiques Road Trip for BBC2, is now taking the role of creative director, while McAvoy – who has produced Walking the Amazon, Tobin – A Portrait of a Serial Killer, Born Fighting with Senator James Webb and In Search of Sherlock Holmes – is now head of documentaries.
STV Productions is continuing to lobby the UK Government to be awarded full independent status, so it can benefit from quotas required of the likes of the BBC to commission ‘indies’. Currently, it is considered to be part of a broadcaster.
