Sky's Hobbins joins Chalkboard as creative director

Indie Chalkboard TV, has appointed ex Sky Entertainment commissioning editor, Bill Hobbins, to the newly created role of creative director.

Hobbins brings almost 30 years of television-production experience in entertainment, factual entertainment, documentary, scripted comedy, children’s and live production to his new position. The International Emmy winner and BAFTA nominee, who will report directly to Chalkboard managing director Mike Benson, joins the indie from his most recent position at Sky Entertainment, where he has served as commissioning editor of non-scripted since 2015.

Hobbins, who takes up his new role this month, has also been appointed to the executive committee of the recently established iZen UK group, which consists of Chalkboard’s sister companies Storyboard Studios, based in Scotland, and scripted specialist Clapperboard, which launched in 2020. He will join Mike Benson, Storyboard co-founder Natalie Humphreys and Chalkboard head of production Michael Klokkos on the committee.

As Chalkboard’s first creative director, Hobbins will drive the development of Chalkboard’s non-scripted ambitions, alongside the creation and execution of new projects across all genres.

Bill Hobbins said: ‘Joining a group that creates outstanding and original content in all genres, across the nations, regions, London and globally is truly exciting. This is a group which has a flexible and collaborative spirit, underpinned by a strong entrepreneurial outlook and I can’t wait to see what we can create together.’

Mike Benson, managing director of Chalkboard, said: “We’re chuffed Bill has agreed to join us at an exciting time for the company as we look to further build our slate across a number of genres. We’ve always had a really good relationship with Bill – he’s a lovely, well liked and respected exec in both programme making and commissioning and it feels like a really good fit for us”.