David Abraham announces changes at Channel 4
Channel 4’s new chief executive David Abraham has announced plans to cut a quarter of senior managers.
The broadcaster will see its 48-strong team of senior managers reduced by 25%, while Julian Bellamy will move to acting chief creative officer under Abraham’s restructuring plans.
The new chief also plans to halve the number of direct reports he has before the end of the year, according to reports.
Channel 4 said the cuts will be achieved by not filling current vacancies, although also admitted that there will be a “small number of redundancies”.
Abraham’s changes will also see the creation of a new chief creative officer role, which will be responsible for a new single content division, bringing together digital and traditional TV commissioning and production.
The role will combine the current responsibilities of Kevin Lygo, who is leaving Channel 4 to become managing director of ITV Studios, and Bellamy’s existing job. Bellamy has been asked to cover the new role on an interim basis, although has not been ruled out of being formally appointed to continue in the position.
Abraham said he plans to hold a formal recruitment process to fill the role, although it is in “no way a reflection on Julian’s capabilities and my confidence in his potential to do this role… He will be a strong candidate for this position”.
“Combining our two most senior creative roles also takes out a layer of management and is intended to offer our commissioning heads a clear and direct route to the creative centre of the organisation, delegating more responsibility to them and empowering them to pursue creative innovation across all platforms,” Abraham added.
The commissioning teams is also expected to see further cuts to “reduce layers of management and overlap and offer our independent suppliers that same direct route into our senior creative decision-makers,” according to Abraham.
Other changes as a result of the chief’s strategic review include the creation of two new senior executive posts, a new role for a director of audience technologies and insight, and a new role to combine responsibility for corporate relations, marketing, press and publicity and policy and regulations.
Abraham said: “The aim is to fundamentally change our culture to become much more audience-focused and create an even greater sense of connection with our brand in the highly competitive and converged world of fully digital media.
“We are going further than any other broadcaster has yet gone to fully integrate our commissioning and content teams as we anticipate the tipping point in the convergence of television with other media.”