History Hit hires Bill Locke as Head of Original Programming

Little Dot-owned SVOD and content platform, History Hit, has appointed Lion’s Bill Locke as Head of Original Programming.

In the newly created position, Locke will report directly to History Hit co-Founder and Creative Director, Dan Snow, and will be responsible for overseeing development and executive producing the delivery of series and singles as the company increases its investment in original programming to more than 60 hours per year.

Locke joins History Hit after 20-years at All3Media sister company Lion TV, most recently as Director of Specialist Factual. In recent years Locke has made films for BBC, C4, ITV, C5, Sky, ARTE, France Television, History Channel, National Geographic, Smithsonian, PBS and TRT (Turkey).

Dan Snow, co-Founder and Creative Director of History Hit, said: “When we began the search for a new Head of Original Programming, we could only have dreamed that we would find someone of Bill’s calibre and passion to join the team. With his rich background steeped in traditional broadcast, we have no doubt that he will be able to take our output to another level – deepening our relationship with our loyal history fans but also engaging and converting new digital audiences through the power of quality storytelling.”

Bill Locke added: “I’m really looking forward to taking on a fascinating new challenge at History Hit, where I’ll be able to pursue two of my greatest passions: history and film-making. These are exciting times for a specialist streamer like History Hit to make a powerful impact on an enthusiastic and hungry audience who, like me, are fascinated by history. I’m really looking forward to working with Dan Snow and the team to help make History Hit even more successful.”

This news follows on from the promotion of James Carson to Managing Director, effective from the beginning of this year, as well as the recently announced History Hit and Little Dot Studios media partnership on the search for the wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance.

History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, an All3Media group company. Little Dot Studios’ digital history brands include Timeline, Real Royalty, Odyssey, War Stories and Absolute History.