Our leadership | Zai Bennett

Zai was appointed to his current role of MD in 2019 and is responsible for Sky’s portfolio of entertainment, cinema and kids’ services. This includes Sky’s leading entertainment brands Sky Showcase, Sky Max, Sky Atlantic, Sky Witness and Sky Comedy; its factual services Sky Crime, Sky Nature, Sky Documentaries, and Sky Arts, the UK’s only channel dedicated to arts and culture. Zai is also responsible for Sky’s world leading home film service, Sky Cinema and Sky’s children’s programming in Sky Kids, as well as Sky’s free to air portfolio.

Under his leadership, working with Director of Sky Arts Phil Edgar-Jones, in 2020, Sky Arts became a free-to-air channel with the aim of making the arts more accessible to all. This coincided with the covid-19 pandemic, during which Sky Arts played a pivotal role in supporting the arts by bringing productions to the screen whilst theatres and venues remained closed to audiences. In 2021, the channel also announced its intentions to aid the cultural recovery and continues to champion the arts in the face of critical levels of under-funding.

Working with the commissioning teams, Zai has been responsible for Sky’s slate of award-winning original programmes including Chernobyl, which holds the record for the most BAFTAs received by any show in a single year, Patrick Melrose, I Hate Suzie, Save Me, Gangs of London, Rob & Romesh Vs., Sally4Ever and Brassic, which, last year, won the RTS’s inaugural comedy drama award.

In 2020, Sky launched six new channels, further broadening the content for its customers, including an entirely new factual division under Director of Factual Poppy Dixon of Sky Documentaries: Sky Documentaries, Sky Crime and Sky Nature; and well as Sky Comedy, Sky Mix and Sky Showcase to broaden out how Sky offers content to its customers.

Zai’s remit also includes bringing the best of the international marketplace to UK audiences, including through a number of deals with the US that brought some of the biggest titles to Sky customers, including Game of Thrones, Succession, House of the Dragon, The Last of Us, Veep, True Detective, Barry and Big Little Lies.

Most recently, Zai has overseen - working with Sky Cinema director Julia Stuart - the changes to Sky Cinema’s original film slate, including tentpole titles like Ferrari and Beekeeper and award winners like May December and Mass. The introduction of a theatrical window for these titles has allowed them to reach a wider audience and build the Sky Originals brand with consumers.

Prior to his current role he was Director of Programmes and previously Director of Sky Atlantic. Before joining Sky, Zai was Controller of BBC Three for three years, joining after 12 years at ITV where he was Director of Digital Channels and Acquisitions and launched ITV’s 2, 3 and 4 channels,  and was Controller of ITV 2. During this time, he commissioned award-winners Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Bad Education, Life and Death Row, People Just Do Nothing, The Revolution Will be Televised and In the Flesh.

In 2022, Zai led on the creation of Sky’s Assistant Commissioner programme, a two-year scheme designed to attract seven creatives from outside the traditional commissioning pool. Recognising that senior commissioning executives, with the power to select which programmes are made, are often from similar backgrounds, and with turnover low, the new scheme was developed to bring in fresh perspectives and voices by widening the creative recruitment pool. The programme forms part of Sky’s wider strategy to support diversity and inclusion in our industry and our workforce.

Zai has been a guest tutor at the MetFilm school, jointly chaired the NFTS Gala Committee and was advisory chair of the Edinburgh TV Festival in 2014. He was also a key member of the Coalition for Change introducing the freelancers charter in 2022 and has also been on the board of the Creative Diversity Network 2019-24.