UKTV promotes two for factual, fact-ent & comedy commissions

Helen Nightingale & Mark Iddon

UKTV has promoted Helen Nightingale to head of factual and factual entertainment, while Mark Iddon has been upped to senior commissioner for comedy entertainment.

Both will report to Hilary Rosen, UKTV’s director of commissioning, whose remit was expanded in November, with Nightingale overseeing all factual and factual entertainment commissions across the network, and Iddon leading on the comedy entertainment genre.

Iddon will also oversee the hiring of a new commissioning executive for comedy entertainment, who will take ownership of digital short form content and podcasts, alongside linear titles.

Nightingale joined UKTV in 2015 as commissioning editor, and has executive produced shows across the network, as well as commissioning titles including Emma Willis: Delivering Babies and Women On The Force for W, French And Saunders: Funny Women for Gold and Hornby A Model World for Yesterday. She was promoted to senior commissioning editor in 2018.

Prior to joining UKTV, Helen was head of factual at Gogglebox Entertainment where she executive produced Singing In The Rainforest for Watch and Young War Widows for ITV. Before that, she was Head of Popular Factual at IWC Media.

Iddon, meanwhile, joined UKTV as commissioning editor in 2020, with credits including Comedians Giving Lectures, Late Night Mash, Outsiders and Live At The Moth Club.

Prior to joining UKTV, he worked at Avalon where he spent most of his career as a producer and series producer working on shows including Russell Howard’s Good News, Unspun With Matt Forde and Rob Delaney’s Stand Up Central. Before joining Avalon, he worked as a development producer at BBC Multiplatform Studio.