Mountague looking at drama, children's and comedy for DLT

The former head of the BBC's northern comedy unit, Jon Mountague, is working up new ideas across a range of genres for the US producer DLT Entertainment.

Mountague told How-Do he was looking at comedy scripts as well as ideas for children's TV, drama and factual entertainment for his new employer who he joined last month.

DLT, established by the New York theatre impressario Don Taffner, was behind the BBC sitcom My Family and exported UK productions such as the Benny Hill Show to the US.

DLT has offices in London, New York and Los Angeles and while Mountague is currently working from home in south Manchester he expects to take office space soon.

"We don't have an office yet. We'll possibly go to the Greenhouse (at MediaCityUK). We're trying to build momentum and once we get a bit of business away we'll start to look at premises."

Mountague, who has been appointed executive editor, began his TV career as a researcher at Chris Evans' Ginger Productions, working on the TFI Friday series.

He went on to work for a range of broadcasters and production companies including BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, Talkback Thames and Mentorn. He joined the BBC in 2002 where he worked on comedies such as Funland, Ideal, I'm with Stupid and The Visit.

He said the switch to an independent meant, "more customers - it's a bigger market".

"It's a good time for new comedy - Sky is spending a lot of money, Channel 4 is spending more than it used to and with more competition the BBC will rise to the challenge.

"But I'm also looking at factual entertainment, drama and scripts for CBBC."

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