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EXCLUSIVE: Channel 4‘s finance boss is to exit after five years, coming at a tricky time for the Gogglebox network.
Vince Russell has decided to leave at the end of the year and will work alongside interim Terry Downing, a former Endemol and Fox finance exec, until then. The search for Finance Director Russell’s long-term replacement has started.
Russell joined Channel 4 in 2018, overseeing finances during the pandemic, privatization period and, more recently, the economic downturn brought on by the ad recession. Prior to Channel 4, he worked for Sky in various finance and product roles.
His boss, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Allan, said Russell had “helped shepherd the channel through a very interesting period with great skill and unwavering good humour – steering Channel 4 through the pandemic and then on to achieve some tremendous results including posting record revenues and programme investment in 2022.”
Russell has “helped mitigate the stresses of much harder market conditions in the past 18 months,” according to Allan’s statement.
Russell’s announcement comes at a tricky time for Channel 4. The network has been hard hit by the ad recession, has canceled a number of shows and is pushing commissioning back to 2025. Deadline’s analysis earlier this month found that producers are anxious that the network has been scrambling to delay the premiere of shows until 2024 for political reasons, which is also having knock-on effects. Channel 4 has repeatedly insisted that it is a tough market and Chief Content Officer Ian Katz recently said the network has been “a bit more honest” than rivals about the extent of the broader commissioning slowdown.
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