The BBC’s director of comedy, Jon Petrie, is leaving the UK public broadcaster to become the new creative director at Hat Trick Productions.
Having joined the BBC in 2021, Jon Petrie has worked on prominent shows such as Ghosts, Here We Go, and Gavin & Stacey: The Finale, and he also established the BBC Comedy Festival to support and celebrate British comedy talent. He is scheduled to officially depart the broadcaster in August, and Emma Lawson will step up as the interim director of comedy with immediate effect while the recruitment process for a permanent replacement begins.
Before his tenure at the BBC, Petrie built an extensive background in the industry, serving as a comedy commissioning editor at Channel 4 and as the head of comedy at Broke and Bones, an independent production company owned by Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.
Commenting on the transition, BBC Chief Content Officer Kate Phillips noted that Petrie has been British comedy’s biggest backer and expressed sadness over his departure, while Petrie himself shared his excitement about taking on the creative director role at Hat Trick, describing the company as an established pioneer in the independent production community.
