Meet the Team

Jim joined RDF in 2009 from ITV Productions where he held the position of Director, ITV Studios, Factual & Entertainment since 2003.

At ITV his two genre section of the business had more than 500 staff and was responsible for a stellar slate of programming including I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!, Dancing on Ice, Hell’s Kitchen, Come Dine With Me, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, Tonight with Trevor McDonald, Airline and the RTS Educational TV Award winner Words of War. Prior to this role he was Group Controller, Granada Factual (from 2001) and Controller of Factual Programmes, LWT (from 1997) whose programmes included Ramsay’s Boiling Point, the first television vehicle for celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. He has worked in television production for over 30 years and personally created and devised a wide range of programmes including Britain’s Best Dish and Celebrity Fit Club.

Over the last nine years Jim has overseen the growth of new factual formats and hits, including Eat Well For Less, Secret Life of Four Year Olds, Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents, 10 Puppies and Us, How To Spend It Well with Phillip Schofield and Secrets of The Pickpockets. RDF's daytime slate has also grown with major ITV series including Dickinson's Real Deal, Secret Dealers and the hit quiz, Tipping Point. In 2015, RDF set up its own entertainment label Fizz. Recent programmes include Crystal Maze and Shipwrecked.

Jane started her TV career in Manchester as a trainee Editor moving up to Post Production Manager for a facility company. She then moved to Mersey TV as Production Manager for the long running popular serial, Brookside.

As a freelance PM, Jane worked for several companies on a variety of factual, entertainment and live shows. She was a Programme Finance Manager for Discovery and Channel Five before joining RDF in January 2002 as a Production Executive. Now Director of Production, Jane oversees the busy and varied output of RDF TV.

Dan Barraclough began his career as a Researcher on The London Programme, the current affairs series. He went on to become a PD and Series Producer for LWT, working on  programmes as diverse as the documentary  “Ampleforth  - My Teacher’s a Monk”, the hit docusoap “Airline” and the long-running entertainment series “I’m A Celebrity Get me out of Here.”

He later became an Exec within ITV productions, overseeing a raft of prime time documentary and factual entertainment series in both the UK and the US.  He spent four years at Mentorn as Head of Factual entertainment, where he produced a number of Factual entertainment shows including “Grease the School musical” for Sky1 and “Paradise Hotel” for Fox before joining RDF. Whilst at RDF, he has overseen a number of successful factual and factual entertainment formats including the crime series “Secrets of Shoplifters” for Channel 4 and one ITV highest rating series, “100 year old drivers.”

Maia began her career at ITV where she produced and directed a range of programmes from Dark Side of the Brain and So You Think Can Nurse to David Jason’s Greatest Escapes and Bomber Command. Her yearly treat was the Pride of Britain Awards where she began as a researcher, working her way up to Series Producer.

At RDF, she helped create the BBC2 series Collectaholics, 100 Year Old Drivers and 100 Year Old Driving school for ITV, and Humble Pie for W, as well as producing 10 Puppies and Us, Britain’s Most Spectacular Backyard Builds, and the Eat Well For Less? Christmas Special for the BBC.

More recently she produced a number of Secret Life of 5 Year Olds specials for Channel 4, and is currently working on a new series for them exploring the generation gap.

Beth joined RDF as a development producer in Entertainment. Credits include The Truth About Size Zero and The Great Pretender for ITV, and Wogan’s Perfect Recall for Channel 4.

She then moved into popular factual where she helped develop the Oz and James Big Wine Adventure series for BBC Two, the Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents format for BBC Three, devised the ITV daytime series Secret Dealers and developed the 100 Year Old Drivers brand, also for ITV.

More recent credits include developing Six Puppies and Us for BBC Two, Shop Well for Less for BBC One, and Garden Nightmares for ITV. She also helped a bit on the development of Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Four Year Olds, with particular emphasis on the Nativity Special.

In her spare time she likes wine (see Oz & James), dogs (see Six Puppies) and Christmas (see SLO4YO Xmas special). The Holy Grail is a format that combines all three.

Mel began her career as a journalist, writing news and features for a number of newspapers and magazines, including Radio Times, Psychologies and The Jerusalem Post - before defecting to TV on the Channel 4 trainee scheme. And she’s glad she did, as she spent more time watching telly than reading anyway...

Since then, Mel’s worked in development and production at various production companies, including: Films of Record, Twenty Twenty and the BBC. Credits include: The Met (BBC One); Iceland Foods: Life in the Freezer Cabinet (BBC Two); Karl Pilkington: The Moaning of Life (Sky One); GPs: Behind Closed Doors (Channel 5) and Hoff The Record (Dave) - a mockumentary series about David Hasselhoff - which won an international Emmy.

Since joining RDF, Mel has enjoyed expanding into factual formats as well as indulging her passion for documentary story-telling - and now runs the development team. Her credits include: 100 Year Old Driving School (ITV); Being Black, Going Crazy? (BBC Three); 10 Puppies and Us (BBC Two) and RDF’s forthcoming longitudinal documentary series about the transgender community for Channel 4.

Julia joined RDF to work as part of a production team for a C4 programme, and joined permanently in May 1997, as Head of Light Entertainment and Features for RDF Rights.
Julia started in the TV industry in 1984 as a secretary in drama and worked her way up to Series Producer via a mix of factual entertainment, features, travel and cookery shows at various indies. After working on the LE and Features Desk until 2000, Julia was then put in charge of in-house production after which she became involved in recruitment at RDF. In 2004 Julia became Head of Production Talent working mainly for RDF TV, but contributing to recruitment across the group.

Louise started her career in production, working in factual entertainment and documentaries at various indies including the BBC, Princess Productions, Ricochet, Fresh One and Blast Films.   At RDF she worked on the prestigious C4 series Faking It.  She joined the Talent Desk nearly nine years ago, bringing her valuable production experience with her to recruitment.  Now, with a growing family, Louise works part time finding the best staff for our commissions and looks forward to meeting you.    

Kathryn first came to work at RDF in 2003, and went from being Runner, to Assistant to the Executives, to Development Manager during which time she acquired a vast amount of knowledge about the television industry.  Kathryn departed for Australian shores in 2006, where she continued to work in television development alongside training as a massage therapist and managing a restaurant and fine food store! Four years on Kathryn returned to the UK, and in 2011 joined the Talent Desk, happy to be back at RDF, her TV home.

Sam started her career at Fulmar TV as a production secretary before moving to LWT.  Here she worked on a variety of studio shows and documentaries – a highlight being Miami Uncovered!!  In 2000 she started her first PM job at RDF Television and in 2005 became a production executive.  During her PE role she has looked after a variety of programmes including Extraordinary Breastfeeding, Sun Sex and Suspicious Parents, Sing If You Can, Secret Millionaire and Tipping Point.

Rosa started as a Production Secretary working on as series of short films for Channel 4’s Independent Film and Video Department under Alan Fountain. She then went on to work for an American satellite channel as Production Assistant for two years, before moving on to Eurotrash initially as Production Co-ordinator and then Production Manager for several series. Following on from this she was part of the team that launched SMTV/CD:UK and went on to become Production Executive for Zenith and Blaze overseeing various productions. Joining RDF in 2004 she has worked across many different genres and programmes ranging from 100 Year Old Drives and Secret Life of 4, 5 and 6 year olds.

Emily began working in TV in 2000. After a stint in post-production she moved across to coordinate the first series of Nigella Bites and then a large National Geographic series before joining RDF as a Production Coordinator in 2001. Over the past 15 years she has worked across a diverse range of RDF’s programmes including Secret Millionaire, The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies and Collectaholics. As a Production Executive Emily looks after a range of programmes and series.

Mark launched RDF West 10 years ago and it is now one of the UK’s most thriving regional independent production businesses delivering over 200 hours of network production every year. He is responsible for wide range of factual series from BBC1 consumer factual series Shop Well For Less and Eat Well For Less, to long–running Daytime hit shows Dickinson’s Real Deal and Secret Dealers for ITV,  C4 features shows The Changing Room, and This Old Thing, observational documentary series Emergency Bikers, Inside The National Trust and Stansted, specialist factual with Choose The Right Puppy For You for BBC2 and music documentaries The Richest Songs In the World, Secret Voices of Hollywood and Biggest Band Break Ups and Make Ups.

Before joining RDF, Mark was Head of Factual for the BBC in Bristol where he also created and executive produced many long running series, including DIY SOS, Bargain Hunt and Flog It. He has also worked extensively across the industry at ITV, breakfast television, BBC and the independent sector.

Angela started her career in television in 1989 at Watershed Television in Bristol.�
As a freelancer for many years, Angela has worked on a variety of factual, natural history, documentary and reality programmes, for all the major broadcasters in both the UK and Internationally.  She became Head of Production at Touch Productions in 2004, joined Love West in 2007 then Diverse in 2009.  She came to RDF in 2010 when the two companies merged.

After working as a press officer for the Metropolitan Police for 9 years, Jo started her career in television in 1997 when she joined LWT. Jo spent 15 years at ITV working on a varied output from Trinny and Susannah to Katie Price. She was involved in setting up the first series of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! and spent many happy times in Australia on subsequent series. She joined RDF in February 2011 as an Executive Producer and became Head of Popular Factual in 2012. Jo looked after many series of Sun Sex and Suspicious Parents for BBC3 and more recently is the executive producer for BBC1 series Eat Well For Less? and Shop Well For Less? She recently relocated to Bristol and works from RDF West.

Julia started her career as a runner on Blind Date where the late great Cilla Black taught her the correct way to open a bottle of champagne. A skill she still uses today more than anything else she has learned in the industry. From there she was recruited by a company in Soho called Independent Image simply because her pitiful CV had been wrongly put in the interview pile rather than the reject pile. She surprisingly got the job and this small but lovely company trained her up to be a Researcher before she realised that the money, glamour and power lay in Production Management.

As a freelance PM she worked at several other indies like Shine, ORTV and October Films, before becoming a Production Executive. Julia then went on to be a PE at Endemol, Shine and Virgin Media before being lured to the bright lights of Bristol by RDF Television West in 2008. She has worked on a variety of programmes from quiz shows to hard hitting docs, wildlife to long running returnable formats, feature films, theatre productions and everything else in between. She still credits champagne for all her successes.

Heather started her TV career as an intern at Thames Television, before becoming office runner at a small indie. She joined RDF in 2000 as a Production Co-ordinator, moving up to Production Manager two years later and working on a wide variety of documentaries and factual entertainment series including Faking It, Shipwrecked and Eat Well For Less. In 2015, Heather joined RDF West in Bristol as a Production Executive.