Mark White (44), Five’s Executive Director of Sales, will serve as interim CEO of Five until Dawn Airey takes over.

Gerhard Zeiler, CEO of RTL Group, said: “Dawn Airey is one of the most experienced TV executives of her generation. She has held senior roles in all the commercial terrestrial broadcasters as well as BSkyB. She has a perfect understanding of programmes, audiences, advertisers, the international market and platforms.”

Zeiler continued: “Dawn Airey will lead Five into the next phase of its development. She will guarantee that Five will be a vitalised, entertaining and raucous broadcaster that cannot be ignored, also in the period after digital switchover. I am delighted that we could persuade her to take the helm at Five and that she will be part of our management team of RTL Group.”

Dawn Airey (47) is to return to Five as Chairman and CEO of the broadcaster she joined
in 1997 as launch Director of Programmes. She began her broadcasting career as a management trainee for Central TV in 1985. In 1989 she became Director of Programme Planning at Central and was appointed to the Central broadcasting board. In 1993 she moved to the ITV Network Centre as Controller of Children’s and Daytime Programmes and in 1994 moved to Channel 4 to become Controller of Arts and Entertainment. In 1996 she was appointed Director of Programmes for Channel Five and was promoted to Chief Executive in 2000. In 2003 she was appointed Managing Director Sky Networks and was responsible for all of Sky’s wholly owned channels (excluding sport). In 2006 she was made Managing Director Channels and Services with responsibility for all third party channels, joint ventures and networked media. In 2007 she joined ITV as Director of Global Content and in 2008 she became member of the Board of ITV.

RTL Group is Five’s sole shareholder since autumn 2005. The Group was one of the founding shareholders of Five, holding 29 per cent at the launch of the channel in 1997. RTL Group took full control in several steps over the years.

Five, United Kingdom