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Staff changes prepare for ABC3

In advance of ABC3 launching later this year, the network has announced a new structure for its Children’s Department.

ABC3 logoIn advance of ABC3 launching later this year, the ABC has announced a new organisational structure for its Children’s Department.

Executive Head of Children’s Content, Tim Brooke-Hunt, said: “The ABC is entering a most exciting period in its long history of broadcasting to Australian kids. In a few months we will launch ABC3, a channel dedicated to school-aged children, whilst expanding our offering to pre-schoolers with ABC For Kids on 2, enhancing our on-line services and maintaining our current programming on ABC1.

“In order to enable us to achieve these aims, I am delighted to announce the appointment of a highly-qualified group of executives to enable us to realise this goal.”

According to a statement released by ABC, a number of new positions will report to Head of Programming & Acquisitions, Barbara Uecker:

Emma Dobinson has been promoted to the position of Manager of Scheduling & Acquisitions (Pre-school). Emma has worked within the children’s television department since 2004, most recently in the position of Assistant Programmer.

Emma Mungavin has been appointed to the position of Manager of Scheduling and Acquisitions (School-aged). Emma currently holds the position of Programming and Scheduling Manager at Nickelodeon Australia, and will start her new role with ABC TV on 20 July.

Kerry O’Dowd has been appointed to the position of Key Brands Manager, responsible for supervising the off-air activities of ABC Children’s key in-house brands (Playschool and Bananas in Pyjamas) as well as looking after key characters and brands not owned by ABC.

The other changes in the department will report to the Head of Commissioning and Development, Carla de Jong:

Simon Hopkinson has been appointed to the position of Development & Commissioning Editor, responsible for supervising the development and production of shows to be commissioned from independent producers. Simon is one of Australia’s most experienced script writers and editors, and was President of the Australian Writers Guild from 2003 to 2007. He starts his new role on 29 July.

Jan Stradling has been appointed to the position of Executive Producer – Children’s Production, responsible for the internal production of Play School, Roller Coaster and new hosted-blocks soon to be announced. Jan has long specialised in children’s television and previously worked for Disney Channel, Australia in a similar role. Initially a primary school teacher, Jan is also a published author of both adult and children’s books. Jan started her new role on 10 July.

Aaron Mulheron has been promoted to the position of Development & Commissioning Co-ordinator, responsible for the co-ordination of all areas of production for Children’s TV. Aaron is currently Assistant to the Executive Head of Children’s TV, and starts his new role on 29 July.

Alison Weston, Manager of Educational Programs for ABC TV will continue to report to the Executive Head of Children’s TV.

6 Responses

  1. despite the fact the BBC has both CBBC & Cbeebies, you can still find programs from both channels on BBC One & BBC Two at different times of the day, that said after switch-over, I expect that will change.

  2. Yes, it seems ridiculous to have kids programming on three channels, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued to be almost all repeats.

    I hope the ABC use some of their new funding to get some new decent content for the afternoon ( RollerCoaster onwards) weekday timeslots on the ABC1 soon, which is frequently reduced to all repeats lately.

  3. May I second Woody’s comments!

    It makes sense that ABC1 keeps their morning & afternoon kids shows on air after ABC3 launches (at least until 2012), but ABC2 needs to be freed up during the day… Pretty please!

    1. I specifically raised this question at ABC3 launch. So far there are no plans to change ABC2 daytimes. Which means we could end up with some points in the day when there are kids shows on 3 ABC channels at the same time.

  4. Is it just me – or is there way too much children’s programming on the ABC?
    While I don’t have any problems with ABC3 becoming a dedicated children’s channel why then do we need to see an additional expansion of kids programming on ABC2? Stick it all on ABC3 and let’s have some quality adult programming (news, current affairs for instance) on ABC2.

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