Cherie Cunningham has been announced as UKTV’s new channel director for the comedy entertainment channel Dave.
Cunningham replaces Luke Hales who left the business last month and will be tasked with growing the channel’s viewership and continuing to establish its reputation as the “home of brand-new, award-winning comedy entertainment from the biggest and brightest stars”.
Steve North, the broadcaster’s genre general manager for comedy and entertainment, said, “Cherie has been a key member of the Dave team for several years and I’m incredibly pleased she is now taking on the channel director role. Her exceptional leadership skills, coupled with her extensive marketing knowledge and understanding of how to grow brands makes her perfectly positioned to take Dave to the next stage of its journey.”
Cunningham enthused, “What a role! I’m so thrilled and energised to be taking on this position. Dave is a challenger brand and I’m committed to ensuring we surprise and excite audiences over the coming months and years by supplying non-stop creativity, content and innovation. We’ve had an incredible success rate with new and returning UKTV Original commissions, we’ve landed brilliant purpose driven work with CALM, and as a brand, Dave has bags of personality. So with all that in mind, the future looks set to be very exciting!”
Cunningham joined UKTV in 2016 and became head of marketing for Dave and W in 2019. The broadcaster said that Cunningham has been integral in growing UKTV’s channels and programmes with marketing campaigns and has successfully launched successful content such as Taskmaster, Dave’s BAFTA-winning series, Hypothetical, and cult sci-fi series, Red Dwarf.
Prior to UKTV, Cherie worked in both strategic and creative roles at Sky, Nickelodeon and Sony Pictures Entertainment, and led the channel brand strategy for Sky 1, launching programmes including, A League of Their Own, 24 and An Idiot Abroad.
