Channel 4 appoints Heads for Documentaries and Specialist Factual

British free-to-air public-service television network Channel 4 has appointed Alisa Pomeroy and Shaminder Nahal as the new Heads of Documentaries and Specialist Factual, respectively. Both executives will start in their new roles with immediate effect.

Pomeroy and Nahal will work to maintain Channel 4’s strong and creative relationships with independent production companies across the UK, ensuring that the company continues to identify, develop and produce the next generation of documentary and specialist factual programmes for the audience.

“Documentaries and specialist factual programming have always been at the heart of the channel and these two appointments will ensure that Channel 4 remains the home of the most innovative, challenging and popular factual shows around. Alisa is an inspirational and mischievous commissioner with a long track record of delivering some of the channel’s most creatively ambitious and successful shows. Shaminder is a brilliantly original and iconoclastic thinker who has been behind some of the channel’s most distinctive and provocative commissions. I have no doubt that both of them will make waves,”  commented Ian Katz, Chief Content Officer at Channel 4, to whom Pomeroy will report.

Pomeroy joined Channel 4 in 2015 and has been responsible for a number of stand-out and award-winning programmes. These have included “Jade: The Reality Star who Changed Britain,” “Baby Surgeons: Delivering Miracles,” “Crime and Punishment,” “Snackmasters,” “Barrymore: The Body in the Pool,” as well as “The Family Secret” and “Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles”.

“I’m excited about the future of documentaries at Channel 4. The media landscape has changed unrecognizably since I came to Channel 4, but there’s everything to play for and I’m lucky enough to be inheriting an extraordinarily talented team of Commissioning Editors. Together, we plan to discover the next generation of impactful, unmissable programmes, and nurture the best in British film-making talent,”  Alisa Pomeroy said.

Shaminder Nahal, who will report to Louisa Compton, Head of News and Current Affairs, Sport and Specialist Factual, joined Channel 4 in 2017. She was recently at the forefront of Channel 4’s “The Black to Front Project” with Vivienne Molokwu, and has been responsible for high impact, news-making and award-winning programmes such as “Grayson’s Art Club,” “Grenfell: The Untold Story,” “Empire State of Mind,” “Diana: The Truth Behind the Interview,” “100 Vaginas,” and “Superkids: Breaking Away from Care”. She also delivered “Murder in the Car Park,” “The Unremembered: Britain’s Forgotten War Heroes,” and co-commissioned “The Big Narstie Show”.

“It’s a huge privilege to be leading our Specialist Factual output, which is a department that has delivered some of Channel 4’s most original, controversial and innovative programmes. There isn’t a better time to be taking on the most challenging and fascinating stories and questions in history, culture and science in the boldest possible way - and I can’t wait to get going alongside our brilliant production and film-making partners across the UK,”  Shaminder Nahal declared.