Package Description
Job Reference : 18357
Band: D
Contract type: Permanent role
Location: Belfast. This is a hybrid role, and the successful candidate will balance office/location home working.
Salary: £45,000 - £65,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.
Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
Benefits - We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym. You can find out more about working at the BBC by selecting this link to our .
If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the. For any general queries, please contact: .
Job Introduction
The BBC is the leading Children's broadcaster in the UK, reaching millions of kids 0-12 each week with some of the biggest and best-loved global brands; from pre-school animations like Hey Duggee and Bluey to stand-out dramas like The Next Step and Jamie Johnson. BBC Children's and Education is committed to offering the best content and for all UK children, providing a trusted environment that entertains, informs, and empowers children, adding real value to their lives and we’re proud of the award-winning content we make across all platforms.
We want to connect to younger audiences, helping them discover the breadth of what the BBC offers; from world class interactive and digital experiences to our well-loved programmes and characters.
The Assistant Commissioner plays a critical role in the commissioning process. Working closely with the Head of Commissioning, the Assistant Commissioner will contribute to the strength of the development pipeline, assessing all new ideas (mainly Animation ideas in the 0-12 age range in particular for this role) with confident editorial judgment, spotting opportunities and handling initial rejections with tact and sensitivity.
Main Responsibilities
• The Assistant Commissioner will ensure that they are immersed both in BBC Children's content, but also actively research new innovations with competitor brands/talent, in order to help focus development priorities.
• The Assistant Commissioner will assist in the preparation of detailed performance reviews of each Indie title by liaising with Audiences, Scheduling and Marketing.
• They will help to manage Indie Routines, Briefings and external Pitching sessions, collating the Pitches for the new Commissioning rounds and arranging Webinars as necessary
• They will work closely with the Commissioning Editors to ensure there is a strong development pipeline for our audience, assess all new proposals with confident editorial judgement, pro-actively spot development opportunities and help to co-ordinate development effort.
• They will be an effective and responsive first point of contact for new suppliers, independently handling initial rejections with tact and sensitivity, responding to individual queries, progressing and allocating ideas as appropriate, providing feedback and guidance in a timely manner.
• They will help manage the submissions of all new proposals and ensure that they are all submitted, and to monitor the teams’ relationship with suppliers and performance
• They will build and manage relationships with new or emerging suppliers as appropriate.
• They will have a keen understanding of Children's editorial strategy and to advise suppliers accordingly; to make decisions to ensure this strategy is delivered with each commission, including ensuring diversity, quotas and objectives are in line with strategy for the Genre.
• They will spot key trends in the genre (including programmes), including new subject territories for contemporary programmes
• They will ensure commissions are based on a sound understanding of cost, quality, delivery date, rights exploitation and funding needs.
• They will be responsible for delivering low risk programming including compliance, and complying publicity photos and online content.
• They will review content to ensure it is editorially compliant and in line with BBC editorial standards
Are you the right candidate?
The essential criteria that we require our successful candidate to have is:
• Experience within an Animation area
• Experience of assessing scripts and giving sensitive development notes
• An appreciation and understanding of CBeebies content and the audience
• Experience of handling confidential information tactfully
• Experience of managing relationships with Indies or external suppliers
• Experience of looking at Animation budgets and schedules and assessing from the production pipeline
About the BBC
The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.
We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours .
Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.
We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.