BBC Wales has confirmed Mark O’Callaghan as head of it news and current affairs department and named Rhian Gibson as his deputy.
O’Callaghan has been acting head of the department since October 2002, following the departure of Aled Eirug, who became BBC Wales’s head of corporate responsibility after 10 years in charge of news and current affairs.
A former editor of regional television news bulletin Wales Today, O’Callaghan joined BBC Wales in 1989. He went on to be a producer on BBC Radio Wales’s flagship news programme, Good Morning Wales, and then senior producer of radio breakfast news.
He moved to television as producer of Wales Today, becoming its editor in 1997.
O’Callaghan’s deputy, Rhian Gibson, has been appointed as a result of the expansion of the department since devolution in Wales. It now has the corporation’s biggest newsroom outside London.
Before her new role, Gibson was a production and planning executive with BBC Wales’s sport department, a post she took up last December.
She joined BBC Radio Cymru in Bangor as a researcher in 1987 before joining the news department in Cardiff.
She became producer and senior producer of various radio news programmes, co-presenting a weekly youth news programme on Radio Cymru, Y Doctor Newyddion.
Gibson then moved to television as producer of Newyddion and was appointed its editor in 1998.
By Wale Azeez
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
