Diederick Santer (born 3 July 1969[[1]]) is a British television producer and is best known for his work on the popular BBC television soap opera EastEnders, a post which he assumed on 23 October 2006 and left on 1 March 2010. He was Chief Executive of production company Kudos from 2015 to 2019, and is currently Chief Creative Officer of BritBox.
He is the son of the late Anglican Bishop Mark Santer.
Early life
Santer graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in
Psychology and the History and Philosophy of Science. He attended Burlington Danes School in
Hammersmith, where he played keyboards in Crazy Luke with Simon Stafford, whose band
Longpigs made it into the UK Charts in the 1990s.
Television career
His TV career began in 1996 as a freelance script reader for United Productions before becoming
script editor on the first two series of
Where the Heart Is, and assistant script editor on
Paul Abbott's ITV series
Touching Evil.
Santer moved to ITV Granada where he script-edited the first two series of A&E and The Last Train before joining BBC Drama Series and Serials in 2000, where he produced the first three series of Debbie Horsfield's hairdressing drama Cutting It, starring Sarah Parish and Amanda Holden. He also produced The Taming of the Shrew, the Bafta-nominated Much Ado About Nothing for BBC One, and a lavish adaptation of Jane Eyre.
EastEnders
Santer became Executive Producer of
EastEnders on 23 October 2006, his first episode airing on 5 January 2007, replacing
Kate Harwood. He introduced several characters to the show, including
Minority group and gay characters to make the show 'feel more 21st Century'. Characters he introduced include
Zainab Masood,
Shabnam Masood,
Masood Ahmed,
Tamwar Masood,
Christian Clarke,
Whitney Dean,
Tiffany Butcher,
Ronnie Mitchell,
Roxy Mitchell,
Archie Mitchell, Danielle Jones,
Jack Branning,
Heather Trott,
Lucas Johnson,
Ryan Malloy and
Syed Masood. He also reintroduced a number of previous characters to the programme, including
Janine Butcher,
Bianca Jackson,
Steven Beale,
Louise Mitchell and Sam Mitchell. He also axed a number of characters, such as
Kevin Wicks,
Dean Wicks,
Carly Wicks,
Mickey Miller, Keith Miller,
Yolande Trueman,
Garry Hobbs and
Dawn Swann. He was also responsible for recasting the role of Bobby Beale.
Santer presided over numerous highly successful storylines during his time as executive producer, such as the aftermath of the demise of Pauline Fowler, the Christmas 2007 episode, which saw the reveal of Max Branning and Stacey Slater's affair, attracting 14 million viewers,
Following the show's 25th anniversary EastEnders Live, Santer stepped down on 1 March 2010 and Bryan Kirkwood took over.
After EastEnders
After stepping down from
EastEnders, Santer continued to work at the BBC, executive producing in a special position developing "new shows that can be internationally co-produced".
In May 2010, he left the BBC after ten years to set up his own production company called Lovely Day.
In 2014, Lovely Day's crime series Grantchester was ITV's highest-rated new drama series of the year.
In 2015, Santer become joint CEO of Kudos,
In 2021, Santer joined BritBox as their first chief creative officer.
External links
