EXCLUSIVE: One of many BBC’s longest-serving children executives, Michael Towner, liable for the likes of Teletubbies and Andy and the Band, is exiting after almost three many years with the company.
Deadline understands Towner has taken voluntary redundancy and his Senior Commissioning Editor function can be closed.
The BBC will subsequently recruit for an animation commissioner for ages 0-6, coming at a time when BBC Youngsters’s & Training boss Patricia Hidalgo is prioritizing animation. She not too long ago launched a fund and issued a callout for a British equiavlent of The Simpsons.
Towner joined the BBC 27 years in the past and has labored throughout Youngsters’s for many of that point, producing, directing and commissioning exhibits for linear channels CBBC and CBeebies.
He has produced and directed the likes of Teletubbies, Blue Peter, Get Your Personal Again and the BAFTA-nominated One thing Particular, together with commissioning titles together with Twirlywoos, Waffle The Marvel Canine and Andy and the Band.
His boss Kate Morton, BBC Youngsters’s Head of Commissioning And Acquisitions, 0-6, described him as a “sensible commissioner, who can be dearly missed by all who work alongside him and we want him the easiest for the long run.”
Towner’s departure comes at a time of change for Hidalgo’s division as CBBC and CBeebies put together to maneuver on-line.
Deadline revealed earlier this month that the workforce’s digital division is to be restructured and Hidalgo has additionally overseen the in-house manufacturing workforce’s transfer to BBC Studios and adjusted the best way by which content material is commissioned by bringing commissioning and acquisitions below one roof.
