ITV is set to announce that it has poached the BBC’s successful head of drama on Friday as part of a reorganisation of its senior programming team.
The departure of Polly Hill as the BBC’s head of drama, where she was responsible for Poldark and Wolf Hall, will come as a blow to the corporation, which made the genre a key part of its recent channels launch.
After weeks of negotiating, new director of television Kevin Lygo is understood to have offered Hill twice her BBC salary in an effort to entice her to the commercial broadcaster.
Hill’s appointment comes amid a huge changing of the guard at ITV - which is also set to fill important vacancies in factual, entertainment and drama.
Lygo, who was revealed as the replacement for Peter Fincham in January, has created a new structure following the departure of director of entertainment Elaine Bedell in January, head of factual Richard Klein in February and director of drama Steve November earlier this month.
It is understood that Sue Murphy - managing director of the maker of many of Gordon Ramsay’s shows Optomen - is to take one of the factual roles created after Lygo separated out Klein’s job out into factual and factual entertainment.
Her background includes being head of features and factual at Channel 4 where her shows included popular series such as Embarrassing Bodies, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
In entertainment current commissioning editor Peter Davey and ITV Studios entertainment Shu Greene are expected to take the top jobs, with Greene’s background at Simon Cowell’s company Syco TV and experience executive producing X Factor and X Factor USA no doubt proving particularly useful.
Lygo he was less successful in courting the BBC’s acting controller of factual Alison Kirkham whom he is understood to have also approached.
ITV and the BBC declined to comment
