Former Mirror editor Wallace appointed head of TV at News UK

Murdoch-owned News UK Broadcasting has announced the appointment of Richard Wallace as head of TV at the company.

The former Daily Mirror editor will be charged with overseeing all editorial output from right-wing news channel TalkTV, and will have overall responsibility for the P&L.

Rebekah Brooks, CEO of News UK, said: “Richard has a breadth of knowledge that will be invaluable across the schedule of TalkTV. We are delighted to welcome him to the company as we build on our launch programming to deliver new shows which showcase the best of all of News UK’s journalism.”

Scott Taunton, EVP, President of Broadcasting, News UK, said: “We have built the capability to produce live programming and have launched three prime time shows and regular news bulletins. We can see the opportunities to produce new formats and to evolve our video output across all platforms. Richard will lead an exceptional team of TV executives, providing editorial oversight for all programming and overall responsibility for the budget and P&L.”

Richard Wallace said: “TalkTV is innovating and producing news programming for the streaming age. The role will combine many skills from the newsroom with TV programming. The opportunities for news content are extraordinary right now and News UK’s world class stable of journalism provides a great launch pad.”

One of Wallace’s responsibilities will be to save TalkTV’s poor broadcast ratings. Despite counting controversialists like Piers Morgan amongst its presenters, live viewership has collapsed since launch with similarly right-wing news channel GB News regularly attracting more viewers. A number of clips from the network however have gone viral online and have attracted millions of views.