Channel 4 seeks games boss

Just a year ago, Channel 4’s Education team was winning a Develop Award for Publishing Hero.

Now it’s seeking a dedicated games commissioning editor as it beefs up its interactive content.

Previously, the broadcaster’s games efforts were commissioned by the Education team to create content that reached youth audiences in ways static TV content wasn’t.

The new Commissioning Editor for Games will "lead on the development of games that complement the Channel’s programming, while giving the burgeoning games community direct access to the commissioning process".

The person will also be ‘Channel 4 Online’s key point of contact for the games industry’ and ‘engage external companies and games creatives to develop a range of social, casual and mobile games and game apps to complement and extend Channel 4’s programming, genres and brands beyond the linear TV channels’.

Channel 4’s Glasgow office will be the base for the role to ‘tap into the thriving gaming community in Scotland’ as part of C4’s remit to invest in talent and companies outside of London.

Channel 4 currently commissions games as part of its multiplatform commissioning activities and the new position is created to further develop and expand the channel’s work in this area.

Richard Davidson-Houston, Head of Channel 4 Online, said: "Games are an important form of storytelling and we want to harness the skills and ideas that are out there by giving the games community a dedicated ‘go to’ person. The new Commissioner will be looking for games that complement and extend our programming but also, for the first time, ideas from games creatives that could feed into TV. By having a dedicated person in the post, Channel 4 is holding the door open for the games industry and looking to it as a new source of creative energy; not an afterthought."