Dawn Airey is to join Five six months earlier than expected, channel owner RTL has confirmed.

In a surprise move, Airey quit as ITV's managing director of global content after less than a year in the job to become the channel's chief executive.

She had been expected to work out her full 12 month notice period at ITV but RTL Group CEO Gerhard Zeiler has revealed that an early exit was negotiated, permitting Airey to take up her role at Five in October.

Zeiler added that RTL will provide "the programming budget Dawn wants" on top of another recent increase that took Five's total programming budget north of £230m.