Apple hires BBC factual controller Alison Kirkham for Apple TV+ service

Apple has hired BBC factual controller Alison Kirkham as its new unscripted chief in the UK, reporting to Jay Hunt, creative director of worldwide video Europe.

Alison Kirkham
Alison Kirkham

Jake Kanter for Deadline:

Kirkham will join the Apple TV+ international creative development team this summer after 15 years at the BBC, the last six of which she has spent in charge of factual programming.

During her time at the BBC, she has overseen shows including Planet Earth II, coverage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, and the recent breakout Studio Lambert hit Race Across The World.

As well as overseeing unscripted shows at Apple, she will have some exposure to drama and comedy, with recent shows coming out of Hunt’s team including Trying and Gary Oldman spy drama Slow Horses.

“I will forever be proud that, for six years, I was able to walk into New Broadcasting House as the controller of factual commissioning at the BBC. The last few weeks have shown more clearly than ever the precious role that the BBC plays in our cultural landscape,” Kirkham said. “Now it’s time for the next challenge, and I am hugely excited about the world of opportunities that Apple has to offer.”

MacDailyNews Take: The growth of Apple TV+ continues unabated!

6 Comments

  1. I’m sure the new head of Apple’s Ministry of Truth will do the job proud… (…The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history to change the facts to fit Party doctrine for propaganda effect…)

    1. If you were to go back to the period from, say, January 1, 2020, until about March 19 and read what BBC was saying about the coronavirus versus what the White House was saying, I think the real “fake news” source is pretty obvious. The difference is that the BBC is standing by its prior coverage, while the White House is pointing to videotapes of what the President said and denying that he ever said that.

      As Mark Twain observed, “History never repeats, but it often rhymes.” Having made the horrible error of underestimating the virus in those critical months, the Administration is picking up the second line of the same verse by declaring victory while the trend lines of both new cases and deaths in most of the country are still rising.

      I expect that in three weeks or so we will be seeing the BBC report on the perfectly predictable result of dropping precautions in the middle of an epidemic. See any book or article on the 1918 pandemic to see how clever that is. I am equally confident that the White House will be scrambling for a way to blame the media, China, Obama, Clinton, and the Easter Bunny. As we all have heard, “I don’t take any responsibility.”

      Don’t blame the messenger.

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