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Press release for July 3 2015.

Sydney, 3 July 2015: Tim Christlieb has been appointed as the new Director of Channels for BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand (ANZ), Managing Director Jon Penn announced today.

In this role he will lead the programming and acquisitions strategy across BBC Worldwide ANZ’s portfolio of locally managed channels: BBC First, BBC UKTV, BBC Knowledge, BBC CBeebies in Australia; and BBC UKTV and BBC Knowledge in New Zealand.

Tim joined BBC Worldwide ANZ in May 2012 as the Head of Programming & Production, becoming the Head of Channels in October 2013. He originally joined the ANZ team from London where he was BBC Worldwide Head of Scheduling for the Nordics and Italy for two years.

Prior to this he was Head of UK Channel Operations at MTV Networks and before this Deputy Head of Entertainment at Gateway Broadcast Services. Tim has also held a number of programming and presentation roles at UK–based media companies including NBC Universal, Europe Movieco Partners Ltd and SKY.

Tim’s appointment follows a review of the local channel strategy during which the position of Director of Television, ANZ was found to be no longer required and as a consequence, Natalie Edgar will be leaving the company.

Natalie Edgar joined BBC Worldwide in January 2014 and, as Director of Television, she oversaw local content expenditure and format production, as well as programming and acquisitions across BBC Worldwide ANZ’s portfolio of channels. She designed the channels’ programming and acquisitions strategy and was instrumental in the successful launch of BBC First in August 2014. Natalie oversaw local content expenditure, sourcing potential productions from producers across Australia and New Zealand. She also managed BBC Worldwide ANZ’s relationship with FremantleMedia Australia across a range of format productions such as Coast Australia for the History Channel and Living With The Enemy for SBS.

Jon Penn said: ‘Tim has a real flair for programing and channel strategy, so I’m pleased that he has agreed to permanently take on leadership of the team in the new structure. It is however, with regret that we have to lose Natalie, whose editorial skill, leadership and passion for television will be missed.’

-Brad