Swift move back to Nine
After 18 months heading up ABC's Content & Creative Development, Adrian Swift heads back to Nine to assume the same role.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
ABC’s Head of Content and Creative Development, Adrian Swift, is headed back to Nine after only some 18 months with the broadcaster.
He will become Head of Content Production and Development at Nine responsible for non-scripted production across broadcast and digital platforms including external commissions, the internal production unit as well as program development and format acquisitions.
Michael Healy, Nine’s Director of Television said, “I’m really pleased to say Adrian is returning to Nine in a role which will incorporate production and development of our local content, across all the platforms in our evolving business. Adrian has a great knowledge of Nine, he will be a welcomed member of our team.”
It was considered a coup for the ABC when he departed Nine, a move he later attributed to more creative opportunities and local content. But things change very rapidly in Television and Nine has since ditched its US output deal and is redirecting the spend into local content.
“Nine is my spiritual home and I’m very excited to be returning,” said Swift. “With so many great shows commissioned for 2016, it’s a huge job and I’m looking forward to working alongside Hugh Marks, Michael Healy and Andrew Backwell.
“It has been a privilege working at the ABC and I would like to thank Richard Finlayson and Mark Scott for the opportunity. I have had the genuine pleasure to lead an immensely talented team and work with some brilliant producers during my time here. 2016 will be a great year on ABC TV.”
Richard Finlayson, ABC Director of Television, said: “We will be sad to see Adrian go. He’s made a significant impact in his relatively short time at ABC TV, with results that will be seen throughout our strong 2016 slate. We wish Adrian all the best for his future.”
He exits ABC at the end of January.
4 Responses
The grass is not always greener and in fact is sometimes dead!!
Is that why 9 hasn’t been getting any of the hugely popular overseas shows lately? They ditched their US output deal. They seem to have got a lot of shows that either got cancelled after 1 mseason, like Stalker & Forever or shows that didn’t rate well. 7 gets all the great shows like Revenge, Blacklist, Blindspot, Quantico. Then there’s 10 getting Homeland, Elementary, Madam Secretary, Limitless.
May I ask what did he achieve at the ABC?
ABC indicates we’ll see through shows this year. Development does take time, but his fingerprints would have been on new ABC shows last year too.