Rudy Buttignol is no longer programming TVOntario but is still in charge of its documentaries, following a management shuffle that saw the nine-time Gemini Award winner exit the educhannel after 13 years.

Buttignol has stepped down as TVO’s creative head of programming, but will remain, as a contractor, as its commissioning editor for documentaries, according to management.

TVO spokeperson Jill Javet says there is no connection – apart from ‘timing’ – between his June 30 departure and the coming overhaul of TVO, revealed June 29.

‘Documentaries continue to be as important as they always have been,’ she adds. ‘Rudy’s one of the most talented commissioning editors in the world.’

Javet would not say why he resigned. As Playback went to press, Buttignol was in Italy and unavailable for comment.

Buttignol will work outside the TVO office when he resumes his duties as doc decision-maker in mid-July. Programming and his other former duties now fall to managing director Nancy Chapelle and other staff.

During his time at the channel, Buttignol developed and commissioned more than 200 docs through TVO’s The View from Here series, which he created in 1994, and shared Gemini wins for titles including Dying at Grace, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows and Yo-Yo Ma Inspired by Bach. He shared a nomination for an Oscar in 2004 for the short Hardwood. *

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