Channel 4 has unveiled three new commissioning leadership roles that will take effect when Ian Katz leaves later this year. Louisa Compton and Kiran Nataraja will lead the revamped structure, while a third Director role is still to be filled.
The three Director roles report to Channel 4 CEO Priya Dogra, and the channel says the model is designed to give clearer commissioning priorities, faster and more transparent decision-making, and a more integrated route from development through to delivery and performance. That is a tighter operating model than a single commissioning chain, because end-to-end editorial ownership now sits inside separate leadership lanes rather than one broad portfolio.
Louisa Compton’s wider remit
Louisa Compton, currently Head of News & Current Affairs, Specialist Factual & Sport, will become Director of News, Digital and Audience Trust. Her remit covers news, current affairs, specialist factual and sport, alongside digital-first commissioning, which means the channel is putting those areas under one leader rather than splitting them across separate silos.
That role gives her end-to-end editorial ownership of her area, and it also folds digital-first commissioning into the same span of control. For a commissioning team, that matters operationally: ideas, editorial sign-off and delivery now move through one line of accountability instead of multiple handoffs.
Kiran Nataraja’s content brief
Kiran Nataraja, Channel 4’s current Director of Streaming & Content Strategy, will move into the role of Director of Content Strategy. He will take an overview of how content is commissioned, funded and delivered while acting as the commercial backbone of the content function, and portfolio planning across Channels and Streaming and Acquisitions will remain within his remit.
Under the new structure, the Director of Content Strategy is meant to ensure the commissioning system operates with clarity and discipline and delivers on overall performance. In practice, that puts budget flow, platform planning and commissioning discipline in one place instead of leaving them as separate concerns.
The missing third Director
The Director of Programmes is still being recruited for and will be announced later. That role will carry full commissioning and editorial responsibility for all other programming across scripted and unscripted genres, including Documentaries, Entertainment, and Factual Entertainment and Lifestyle, so the model is not yet complete.
That unfinished post is the friction point in the restructure: two named leaders are already lined up, but the third seat will determine how the remaining commissioning estate is divided. Until that appointment lands, Channel 4’s new system is only partly mapped, even though the framework begins later this year when Katz leaves.
Priya Dogra said, "Independent producers are at the heart of Channel 4, and this new model is about giving them greater clarity and building deeper partnerships in how we work together." The straight read is that the channel wants fewer overlaps and cleaner decision-making before the leadership handover bites, which should make the commissioning route easier to navigate for producers once the final Director is named.
