May 28, 2015

Former Panorama editor Tom Giles moves to ITV a year on from taking on ‘blueprint’ implementation role

Former BBC Panorama editor Tom Giles has joined ITV's commissioning team as controller of current affairs.

Giles, who was appointed Panorama editor in 2010 after joining the BBC in 1991, is to report to director of news and current affairs Michael Jermey.

The move comes a year after Giles moved from being editor of the BBC current affairs programme to a strategy role.

The BBC said at the time: "Tom Giles is to leave as Panorama editor in June to devise and implement a blueprint to shape BBC Current Affairs for the future before stepping up to a senior role in the autumn."

Director of news and current affairs James Harding said at the time: “Four years is a lifetime as Panorama editor and Tom and I have been talking for a while about how we can exploit his many talents and enable him to move up in the BBC. It is my belief, given his unique range of experience in journalism and film-making, he is the best person to devise a blueprint to shape what we do in current affairs for a long time to come.”

According to The Guardian, Giles is understood to be filling the shoes of ITV's controller of current affairs and news operation Ian Squires, who stood down after the general election.

The Guardian said his responsibilities would include working on Exposure, Tonight, On Assignment and The Agenda.

Jermey said: "Tom's impressive track record speaks for itself, and I'm delighted that he is joining ITV as Controller of Current Affairs. He takes on a strong slate of programmes including Exposure, Tonight, The Agenda and On Assignment and will play a key role in developing new content for the channel."

Giles said: “After many fantastic years with the BBC, I'm delighted to be helping to lead the ITV team responsible not just for breaking some of the UK's most significant stories – notably the Jimmy Savile scandal – but also for making the most consistently popular Current Affairs TV programming in the UK. The range and scope of what they do has been expanding in recent years – from Exposure and The Agenda to longer series like Fraud Squad – and I'm excited to be able to build on that output across the schedule for ITV's audiences.”