0/5

Vale: Aidan Laverty

ABC factual producer / executive, who recently served as Head of Specialist, has died suddenly.

ABC factual producer / executive Aidan Laverty, who recently served as Head of Specialist, has died suddenly following a brief illness.

He joined ABC in 2017 as as Executive Producer of Catalyst and in 2019 was appointed Head of Specialist, responsible for arts, science, health and technology, religion and ethics, education and society. In June he moved to a new role overseeing the Factual & Education team.

David Anderson, ABC Managing Director, said in a statement, “We are deeply saddened by the death of our colleague and friend Aidan Laverty.

“The rapid and devastating decline of his health has been sudden and shocking to us all at the ABC, especially for those who worked closely with him in our Specialist and Science teams.

“It is less than three weeks since Aidan had to leave his role as ABC Head of Specialist content to seek further treatment overseas for an unexpected and rare medical condition and the fact that he is no longer with us is hard to bear.

“Aidan was an inspiring and endlessly energetic content maker and manager, who played a substantial role in reinvigorating our content and strategy.

“He joined the ABC in 2017 as Executive Producer of Catalyst and was appointed Manager Science in 2018. In 2019, he joined the ABC Entertainment & Specialist Executive as Head of Specialist. He was recently charged with heading up our expanded factual and education team, overseeing all our factual and specialist content across multiple platforms.

“Aidan was an outstanding storyteller, a great media executive and a delight to know. He was highly regarded, liked and respected by all who worked with him. When you spoke with Aidan, you couldn’t help but get caught up in his overall positivity and enthusiasm, whether it be about the compelling and engaging content he was producing, the team working with him, his family or living in Australia.

“He was a great source of innovation, creativity and common sense at the ABC, and an endless fount of wisdom and wonderfully curious turns of phrase.

“He will be dearly missed by those who knew and worked with him at the ABC and across the wider media industry, here and overseas. We will miss his company, his creativity and his passion for public broadcasting.

“Our thoughts and sincere condolences are with his wife Claudia and their two young children.”

Prior to joining the ABC, he was Specialist Factual Commissioner at the BBC, where he launched series such as Make It Digital, The Truth About, Natural Wonders, The Secrets of Quantum Physics and Girls Can Code. He was also Editor of the BBC’s Science program Horizon and launched The Secret Life of the Cat, Science Under Attack and Eat Fast and Live Longer, which helped spark the 5:2 diet phenomena.

He also developed the long-running BBC series Trust Me I’m a Doctor.

One Response

Leave a Reply