its premise differed somewhat from Newman's initial set-up, veering into more humorous territory rather than remaining a gritty thriller. Newman's great success at ABC had been noted by the British Broadcasting Corporation, whose executives were keen to revive their own drama department's fortunes in the face of fierce competition from ITV. In 1961 the BBC's Director of Television, Kenneth Adam, met with Newman and offered him the position of Head of Drama at the BBC. He accepted the position, eager for a new challenge, although he was forced by ABC to remain with them until the expiration of his contract in December 1962, after which he immediately began work with the BBC. BBC Arrival and impact There was some initial resentment to his appointment within the corporation, as he was an outsider and he was also earning more than many of the executives senior to him, although still substantially less than he had been paid at ABC. As he had done at ABC, he was keen to shake up the staid image of BBC drama and introduce new outlets for the kitchen sink drama and the "Angry Young Men" of the era. He also divided the drama department into three separate divisions—series, serials and plays. In 1964 he and Kenneth Adam initiated the new anthology series The Wednesday Play, a BBC equivalent of Armchair Theatre, which had great success and critical acclaim with plays written and directed by the likes of Dennis Potter, Jeremy Sandford and Ken Loach. The strand attracted comment and debate for several of its productions, such as Cathy Come Home, a Tony Garnett production of a Jeremy Sandford script, which dealt with the issue of homelessness. There were also problems caused by Newman bringing in freelance directors to work on the programme, who sometimes overspent on their plays to try and increase their impact; with staff directors this could be compensated by reducing the budget of a subsequent production, but for a freelancer there would be no such recourse. Shaun Sutton was one of the drama producers who worked under Newman at the BBC, and later succeeded the Canadian as Head of Drama. He later wrote that Newman "galvanised television drama ... [He created] a climate in which boldness paid." In contrast, Don Taylor, who was a director in the drama department at the time, later claimed that he felt Newman was unsuited to the position