DIVERSE APPOINTS LEADING INDUSTRY FIGURE ALAN BROWN

23 June 2009

London, 23 June - Diverse, a Zodiak Entertainment company, today announces the appointment of Alan Brown, one of Britain's leading television executive producers as Creative Director across all of the Diverse Group.

Over the past ten years Alan Brown has originated and produced an extraordinary wide range of hit shows from factual entertainment formats, comedy entertainment panel shows and documentary series.

After several years as producer director at the BBC and Granada, Alan got his first executive producer credits at the BBC in Manchester under Wayne Garvie. There Alan created a string of new shows including the ground breaking nostalgia brand I 70/80s for BBC2. The format sold worldwide and became the #1 show for VH1 in the USA.  Alan went on to join BBC Factual as an executive producer on high profile series such as ‘Great Britons' and ‘Reputations'. In 2003, Alan became a BBC Senior Commissioning Executive for Entertainment ordering the first British series of business formats, ‘The Apprentice' and ‘Dragons Den'. After two years, Peter Fincham and Daisy Goodwin took him to talkbackThames as a key creative, running the factual/comedy entertainment shows. This included the second, audience breakthrough series of ‘The Apprentice', he extended the brand with the spin off show ‘You're Fired' with Adrian Chiles. In comedy entertainment he oversaw the revival of ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks'.

Returning to BBC Production in 2007, Alan created and produced the fifteen part reality show ‘The Restaurant' featuring chef Raymond Blanc,. It's success led to an offer to join Daisy Goodwin, this time at Silver River as a Creative Director, Alan made one of the hit features hit shows of the year, ‘Grow Your Own Drugs' with new talent James Wong for BBC2 and launched the very successful ‘Oops TV' with Justin Lee-Collins for SkyOne.

The quality and originality of his work have won him recognition and awards from The Royal Television Society, BAFTA, Grierson and the Rose d'Or.

Commenting on Brown's appointment, Paul Sowerbutts, Managing Director of Diverse said today "I am extremely pleased to welcome Alan to our team. His enormous enthusiasm for the industry and creative spirit will be of immense value to Diverse as we expand the group and grow. We always seek to keep a creative edge over our competitors and with Alan on board, we will be able to build on our reputation for great factual programmes into shows across the entertainment genre. I expect Alan to offer great leadership in his initial role as Group Creative Director and to take on further responsibilities both within Diverse Group and Zodiak Entertainment."

Speaking of his appointment Alan Brown said "I am sad to leave Silver River, it's a great place to work and it's really tough to leave behind shows such as ‘Grow Your Own Drugs'. However, Diverse offers me a great opportunity to develop professionally. Diverse was one of the pioneers of independent British television. For 25 years it has had a reputation for creating quality factual programmes in London, Bristol and the USA.  Now, with the backing of Zodiak Entertainment, the company can build on this reputation, broaden its output and create some powerful factual and entertainment brands for Britain's broadcasters and the world market".