Kate Phillips is responsible for the strategy and output of all Entertainment, Factual, Arts and Classical Music, Daytime and Events programming across BBC Channels and iPlayer amounting to over 3000 hours of content a year.
Previously she was Director of Entertainment at the BBC commissioning over 500 hours of original programmes a year, including shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice, Top Gear, The Graham Norton Show, Have I Got News For You, Would I Lie To You, Masterchef, University Challenge, Dragons’ Den, The Wheel, The Hit List, Drag Race UK, Eurovision, the BAFTA awards and The Traitors.
During the pandemic Kate was Acting Controller of BBC One, overseeing a vast array of programmes, working and commissioning with many genres including all of Factual, Current Affairs, Sport, Comedy, Drama and Entertainment.
In 2014, Kate was Creative Director of Formats for BBC Worldwide. In this role Kate oversaw all of BBC Worldwide’s scripted and non-scripted formats, over 200 in total. She led the Formats team in London and worked closely with Sales and Production teams across all of BBC Worldwide’s Global Territories.
Prior to this, Kate worked as Channel Executive for BBC One and BBC Three, working closely with the Controllers to oversee all editorial content on both channels, managing early development of commissions and formatting and liaising with scheduling, budgeting, marketing, press, and social media planning and strategy.
Kate’s extensive TV production experience was garnered through producing numerous comedy and entertainment shows for many broadcasters, as well as being a co-owner and Director of Mast Media, an award winning television formats company which developed multiple shows airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and across the globe.
From here Kate turned her attention to development, joining the BBC as Head of Development for BBC Children’s, and overseeing the development of multiple BAFTA-winning shows for CBBC and CBeebies. She consequently became Head of Development at BBC Entertainment, increasing production turnover significantly and helping to win multiple commissions for the department.
Kate also created and ran the successful BBC training scheme Future Formats and resided as the BBC Formats Representative on the European Broadcast Union. In this role she helped devise and establish the annual Creative Forum in Berlin. Kate has a degree in Politics from Bristol University.