ALAN ROOK
Managing Director
BlackRook Media
Alan leads the BlackRook companies and is our principal consultant and producer, having worked at senior executive level for some of Europe’s most significant media brands.
I’ve run the four BlackRook companies for a dozen years – and before that worked for 20 years in broadcasting, mostly for ITV in the UK.
In Corporate film BlackRook offers a variety of products and services – including taking direct responsibility for making sure the content we produce is actually seen by the audience clients want to reach.
As well as our own offer, we’ve partnered with other companies globally, including leading UK broadcast Indie Zinc Media Group. We’ve been making high-end documentary video content for business on TV and online across social media internationally since 2011. We’ve done that across a huge range of industry sectors with location work spanning the EMEA and APAC regions.
BlackRook’s events TV teams work internationally too, providing editorial and technical services, including production hardware and software, for clients including MP International (Singapore), BlueDog Group, George P. Johnson and FIRST Agency. We’ve deployed our teams in Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Holland, Spain, France and in 2024 will be working in China and Indonesia.
Our coaching team has trained all of the BBC’s UK digital apprentices over the last seven years. We also run Digital Skills Bootcamps funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority, teaching hundreds of learners social media content creation skills across the region.
BlackRook has produced more than 300 half-hour current affairs programmes for the broadcaster Iran International and provided more than 50 of its staff in London over four years to support Nigeria’s ARISE News.
I was Editor of the ITV network’s daytime TV programme This Morning and was part of the senior management team that ran the breakfast shows GMTV, Lorraine and Daybreak.
I served as a member of the executive team that runs all of ITV News – its Nations and Regions. For five years, I was Head of News of England’s biggest television region – ITV Central.
I’ve run broadcast and online news operations worldwide for the British Forces Broadcasting Service. As Head of News, I managed an international team at BFBS – multi-media producers, reporters and presenters, including those deployed in Camp Bastion, the principal British base in Helmand Province in Afghanistan during the conflict there.
As a presenter I’ve fronted network current affairs shows – including anchoring live from the studio for ITV across the UK on the morning Princess Diana died. I’ve also presented factual entertainment series on ITV channels, as well as regional news programmes.
A member of Wolverhampton University’s School of Creative Industries Advisory Board, I’ve also been a regional and national awards judge for The Royal Television Society since 2005. I’m an awards judge for the Association for International Broadcasters too. As a producer/director, I am myself a recipient of the International Federation of Journalists’ Documentary Prize.
Throughout the last decade Alan has overseen a number of significant change management projects, taking strategic responsibility in tandem with maintaining operational and creative ownership.
They’re projects with national and international profile where effective internal and external communications messaging has been critical.
He’s led the Project Phase of the formation of the new global broadcaster ARISE Networks – working as Commissioning Editor and Project Manager with teams in Europe, North America and Africa.
He led the establishment of a refreshed network news service at GMTV and at Daybreak for ITV News.
He led modernisation of the tri-media news and factual teams internationally at the UK Armed Forces’ charity SSVC.
He led newsrooms at ITV Meridian and at ITV Central through radical reorganisation.
Alan led production development of a twice-weekly media review show broadcast in the Farsi language for global broadcaster Iran International. BlackRook operated teams of producers and location video journalists in the UK, North America and across the APAC and EMEA regions.
He has worked as an executive producer, consultant, coach and provider of staff and facilities for organisations including the broadcasters CNBC (Europe), Iran International, ARISE News and Rudaw (Kurdistan), as well as The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (Rome), BMW, Zinc Communicate, DMA Media, 3Screens London and VNS 24/7 (Johannesburg)
Alan has guest lectured on broadcast news, documentary making, TV presentation and television magazine production at universities in Nottingham, Lincoln, Birmingham, Derby and Leicester.
