Cameron Roach to Step Down as Director of Drama at Sky Studios

In an internal note seen by Variety, Gary Davey, CEO of London-based Sky Studios, has revealed to staff that Cameron Roach is to step down from his role as director of drama at Sky Studios in the spring.

In his memo, Davey wrote: “Cameron has decided to take some time out and spend more time with his family in Manchester.”

Roach joined Sky Drama as commissioning editor in 2013, and worked across a range of titles including Sky Originals “Britannia,” “Bulletproof” and “Riviera.” Since autumn 2018, he has led Sky Drama in the U.K. and during this time the team have delivered hit series including “Chernobyl,” “Gangs of London” and most recently “I Hate Suzie.”

Davey added: “As well as raising the scale, ambition and critical acclaim of Sky Drama, Cameron has been instrumental in Sky’s drive to produce more diverse programming, both in front of and behind the camera.”

As part of a wider reorganization within Sky Studios in July, unrelated to Roach’s move, Jane Millichip moved from chief commercial officer to chief content officer for Sky Studios in the U.K., while Caroline Cooper was made chief operating officer for Sky Studios, in addition to her role as chief financial officer.

Davey said: “I am confident we have an excellent team in place who will work closely with [Zai Bennett, managing director of content, Sky U.K. and Ireland] and the Sky U.K. team to ensure we continue to bring world-class original content to our customers.”

He added: “Indie development will continue to be led by the drama commissioners, as it is today, and Jane will work with Cameron and the team to decide how we best organize ourselves for continued success in drama.”

Roach began his career in script and series editing on long-running drama series such as “Casualty,” before landing his first producing job on Season 6 of the hit prison drama “Bad Girls” for Shed Productions. He went on to produce two seasons of “Footballers’ Wives.”

In 2007, he moved to Kudos Productions to produce the International Emmy award-winning second season of “Life on Mars,” and in 2009 produced BBC2’s critically acclaimed “Moses Jones.” Other BBC credits include “Silk” and “Young James Herriot.”

In 2011, he was asked to oversee the move of “Waterloo Road” from Rochdale to Glasgow; as executive producer he worked on 50 episodes of the show.