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Richard Deverell, Controller of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Children's, today announced the appointment of Damian Kavanagh as Controller of the award-winning CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.

Damian will start later this year on an initial year's attachment.

He replaces Anne Gilchrist, who, after three years of running the department, is joining the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ in-house Comedy department as Creative & Business Director.

Richard Deverell says: "Damian will bring fantastic vision, creativity and drive to CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½.

"He worked with Anne two years ago in establishing the current CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ positioning and is determined to strengthen and build on this with new ideas.

"He is wholly dedicated to public service broadcasting and to delighting children with wonderful experiences on the website and the channel."

Damian Kavanagh says: "I'm delighted to be heading back into ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Children's and building on the incredible success CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ has had to date.

"It's a very exciting time to be working in children's programming."

CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ won the Children's Channel of the Year Award at the Children's BAFTAs in November 2008 and was named Children's Channel of the Year at the Broadcast Digital Awards in June 2009.

Damian will oversee all programmes and multiplatform commissioning for the CÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ channel and the two dedicated blocks on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ One and ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Two.

Programmes due to be shown later over the next year include the return of Tracy Beaker in Beaker's Back; a second series of Richard Hammond's Blast Lab; The Sarah Jane Adventures and Simon Nye's adaptation of Just William.

Damian joins from Daytime where he is currently Head of Planning and Scheduling and an Executive Producer working on shows including Escape To The Country, Hospital Heroes and The Unsellables.

He has previously worked as an independent Commissioning Executive – working on, amongst others, Hider In The House, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and The Underdog Show – and as Head of Scheduling at ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Children's.

Prior to that he was Head of Planning and Scheduling for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Three and was Acting Controller following Stuart Murphy's departure.

The Head of Scheduling role for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Daytime will be advertised shortly.

LG