News 2005

RDF Media Group plc, the recently floated independent production company, has restructured its creative team, hired the head of development of Twenty Twenty television and formally appointed two heavy-weight non-executive directors in preparation for further growth.
 
RDF announced today that its creative team is being restructured with new posts for Stephen Lambert and Grant Mansfield.  Lambert, formerly Director of Programmes, will become Chief Creative Officer, responsible for the overall editorial output of the RDF Media Group in the UK and the US.  He will also be responsible for ensuring that as the Group grows through acquisitions and organically it remains editorially integrated.
 
Grant Mansfield, currently one of two creative directors at RDF, will become Director of Programmes (UK).  Reporting to Lambert, he will be editorially responsible for the development and production of RDF’s UK programming.  Also reporting editorially to Lambert is Joe Houlihan, President of RDF’s US operations.
And to boost its UK team, RDF has hired Simon Rockell, from production company Twenty Twenty, where he was responsible for history reality hits ‘That’ll Teach ‘Em’ (Channel 4) and ‘Lad’s Army’ and ‘Bad Lad’s Army’ (ITV1).  Rockell is Head of Development at Twenty Twenty, where he has worked for the last three years. 
 
Rockell is currently executive producing the third series of ‘That’ll Teach ‘Em’, a series he devised.  He is also series producing ‘Wakey, Wakey’, a new Channel 4 history reality series set in a 1960s style holiday camp.
 
In addition Tim Weller, CEO of Incisive Media plc, and Graham Luff, most recently managing director of Trader Media plc, have been formally appointed to the board of the RDF Group following the company’s listing on AIM last month.
 
Weller founded Incisive Media, the specialist financial publishing company, in 1994 and floated the company in 2000.  Prior to this, Weller was managing director of Reuters Publishing and a director of Centaur Publishing.
 
Luff was formerly managing director of Newspaper Publishing Group plc, which launched the Independent and the Independent on Sunday. He subsequently became managing director of LBC Radio in London, then finance director of Energis, a telecommunications company and for the past ten years he has been CEO of Trader Media plc, part of the Guardian Media Group.