Following her appointment as head of Entertainment, Kalpna Patel-Knight has confirmed Clodagh O’Donoghue, Saul Fearnley and Suzanne McManus will join her commissioning team.
In addition to these three new appointments, Rachel Ashdown has been appointed lead commissioner for the BBC’s delivery of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 and will focus solely on that.
O’Donoghue has worked on titles including Strictly Come Dancing and The Voice UK. She has most recently been at Lifted Entertainment as executive producer on Dancing on Ice. She will join the BBC in early 2023.
Saul Fearnley started his career in television at ITV Daytime on This Morning and Loose Women, moving into entertainment as a producer on Let’s Dance For Comic Relief and Strictly Come Dancing. He went on to executive produce I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway for ITV, before moving on to exec produce Netflix shows Too Hot To Handle, Dated & Related and Dance 100.
He joins the BBC in October 2022 until Autumn 2023.
Suzanne McManus originally joined BBC Entertainment Commissioning after holding a channel executive role in the BBC Three launch team. Prior to that, she was head of Programmes at BBC GLR.
As commissioning editor, McManus previously oversaw shows such as the BAFTAs, Mock The Week, The Graham Norton Show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Have I Got News for You and The Revolution Will Be Televised. She has also worked with Comic Relief, managing all BBC-wide elements of synchronicity between the two organisations. She rejoins the Entertainment Commissioning team for four months, after having spent the last couple of years living in Switzerland.
Today’s appointments confirms the full BBC Entertainment Commissioning team which is as follows:
Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment
Jo Wallace – Senior Commissioning Editor
Ruby Kuraishe – Commissioning Editor
Katie Taylor – Commissioning Editor
Pinki Chambers – Commissioning Editor
Sarah Clay – Commissioning Editor
Clodagh O’Donoghue – Commissioning Editor
Saul Fearnley – Commissioning Editor (until Autumn 2023)
Suzanne McManus – Commissioning Editor (until early 2023)
Rachel Ashdown – Commissioning Lead, Eurovision 2023
Neil McCallum – Commissioning Editor, Nations & Regions lead
Jamie Dodds – Digital Commissioning Executive
Pippa Considine
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