Five's Dutta heads to BBC Bristol

Dutta has spent three years at Five, during which time he oversaw some of the channels’ biggest returning series such as Cowboy Builders, The Hotel Inspector and The Gadget Show, as well as docs like My Brilliant Brain.

He started his television career as a BBC production trainee, working on shows such as Panorama, Live and Kicking and Tomorrow’s World – where he later landed his first producer’s role.

Dutta will remain at Five until Christmas and joins the BBC in January, reporting to Five’s former director of programmes Ben Gale who is now head of Bristol factual.

Gale said: “Robi has a great eye for popular factual and has been involved in some of Five’s biggest successes over the past few years. I’m very pleased to be welcoming him back to the BBC and look forward to him contributing to the future success of the department.”

Although Dutta’s focus will be on BBC3, he will also develop content for other BBC channels.

He told Broadcast: “I really want a change and to be closer to programme making, I love working on live events and so on, but for me the holy grail is getting a returning series off the ground.”

He is the second Five commissioner to head to Bristol in the last three months. In August, Broadcast revealed that natural history commissioner Bethan Corney was moving to Tigress Productions.

Dutta hails from Newport in Wales and used to make the half-hour trip to Bristol with his family “for ice-skating and special meals”.