Fran Unsworth named new Director of BBC World Service

22 October 2014

Francesca Unsworth has been appointed Director of the BBC World Service Group.

In this role she will lead the BBC’s global news services – BBC World Service, BBC World News and BBC.com/news – as well as BBC Monitoring, and will chair the BBC’s international development charity, BBC Media Action. The BBC’s global news services have a weekly audience of 265m.

Fran will also continue to act as deputy to the Director of News and Current Affairs.

Director General of the BBC, Tony Hall, said: “I have known Fran since she joined the BBC and watched in admiration as she has become that rarest of things: a lifelong BBC insider who thinks like an outsider. Her range of skills and experience combined with a quite exceptional gift for management makes her exactly the right person to take over the enormously important job of directing the World Service Group. I am thrilled with her appointment.”

Director of BBC News and Current Affairs, James Harding, said: “Fran embodies the best of the BBC: she is thoughtful and enabling, tireless and determined, interesting and smart. Fran is already known for her record in fighting for journalistic freedom and free expression. I know she will prove an inspiring and respected director of the World Service, inside the BBC, in Britain and around the world.”

Fran Unsworth said: “Today is the proudest day of my professional life. I do not take on lightly the responsibility of looking after a part of the BBC with such a proud history. I promise to be the guardian of the best of the BBC’s values of independence, impartiality and fairness in our international services, while continuing the successful modernisation of the World Service Group to take our journalism to new audiences worldwide.”

Fran began her journalistic career in 1980 in BBC Local Radio joining Radio 1’s Newsbeat. She spent a spell as a network radio producer in Washington DC and later joined Radio 4’s The World At One and PM.

Fran was appointed the BBC’s Home News Editor and then, in 2001, Head of Political Programmes. In 2005 she became Head of Newsgathering, running one of the world’s largest newsgathering operations with bureaux across the world.

Between November 2012 and August 2013 Fran was the BBC’s Acting Director of News and Current Affairs. She is currently Deputy Director of BBC News and Current Affairs.

Fran will become the first female director in the 82-year history of the World Service. She will take up her new post on 8 December 2014. She succeeds Peter Horrocks, who announced earlier this year that he was leaving the BBC.

AIB appoints Neal Romanek as Editorial Director

3 October 2014

The Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) is pleased to announce the appointment of Neal Romanek as its new Editorial Director.

Romanek, 46, joins AIB from the technology trade magazine, TVBEurope and most recently from producing high-level panels at IBC 2014. In his new role, he will be responsible for the editorial content and direction of AIB including its long-established international media magazine, The Channel, as well as AIB’s growing online news and knowledge network and its social media activities.

“Neal has a great track record across technology and content,” said Simon Spanswick, AIB chief executive. “He brings with him extensive experience as a writer who can explain highly complex technical ideas in language that anyone can understand. He also has a deep understanding of programme production, including development and writing. Neal will be a great asset to AIB and its Members around the world.”

The new appointment comes at a time when AIB is developing rapidly as the association enters the second year of its third decade. Membership is growing and the breadth as well as the depth of its activities is increasing in every continent. AIB provides its Members with market intelligence briefings, helping them make sense of the rapidly changing media marketplace. AIB celebrates success with its annual awards for the best factual content across TV, radio and online. And it offers news to a global readership of more than 26,000 media executives, technologists, editors, producers and journalists.

“It is great to be joining AIB when the organisation is growing so fast,” said Neal Romanek. “As the global media industry continues to change, AIB is well-placed to provide a pivotal role as its knowledge network. I’m looking forward to helping develop and increase AIB’s news and information services across multiple platforms. It’s a great opportunity.”

AIB will be holding its Global Media Summit in London on 18 and 19 February 2015 and Neal Romanek will be involved in curating this important international event. He will also develop a Masterclass around the annual AIBs, the international factual media awards run for the past ten years by the Association and which take place in London in November.