Piers Wenger

Piers Wenger (born 1975) is a British television executive who serves as controller of BBC drama commissioning. He was appointed to that role in 2016, after four years as head of drama at Channel 4. Prior to C4, he was head of drama at BBC Wales and an executive producer on Doctor Who, where he cast Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. As a producer, he closely collaborated with the late Victoria Wood over a decade on her dramatic projects. He produced her BAFTA and RTS award winning dramatization of Nella Last's diary Housewife, 49, collaborated with her on Loving Miss Hatto, Wood's dramatization of the life of the life of classical pianist Joyce Hatto and co-executive produced Eric and Eric, Peter Bowker's biopic of the young Morecambe and Wise in which Wood also starred.

In his time at Channel 4, he helmed a number of popular dramas. In February 2015, Indian Summers, a period drama chronicling the last years of British imperial rule in India launched and recorded the highest overnight drama audience for a C4 drama in 20 years. No Offence, Paul Abbott's anarchic police procedural launched strongly later in the same year and won the Royal Television Society Award for best drama series. While Humans, Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley's sci-fi series, a co-production with AMC, became a significant ratings hit breaking the record set by Indian Summers earlier in the year.

In his first stint at the BBC, he was responsible for commissioning Tom Stoppard's Parade's End and Kevin Elyot's dramatization of the life of Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind.

Since his return to the BBC, he's also participated in Doctor Who casting, approving the Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.