Alan Nixon, former head of entertainment at Channel 5, has joined U.K. animation shop Calon TV to develop the company’s comedy programming. Having worked with many of Britain’s top comedy stars, including Graham Norton and Simon Pegg, Nixon will serve as development executive for comedy at the Cardiff-based company behind such popular animated children’s programs as Fireman Sam, SuperTed and Hanna’s Helpline.
Nixon’s main role will be to develop a new comedy for ITV1, which recently award Calon TV a development grant to create a new scripted comedy using Welsh talent. Calon is already working on an idea for a children’s comedy puppet show for the BBC and comedy shows for radio.
As the controller of entertainment at Channel 5 since its launch in 1997, Nixon helped launch the career of talk-show sensation Graham Norton, resurrected the game show It’s A Knockout, produced the surreal Channel 4 comedy series Absolutely Fabulous and won a Welsh BAFTA for the ITV comedy series Barry Welsh, starring John Sparkes.
