text: On 21 September 2004, Berridge quit as executive producer of EastEnders following continued criticism of the show. Kathleen Hutchison was swiftly appointed as the Executive Producer of EastEnders, and was tasked with quickly turning the fortunes of the soap. During her time at the soap Hutchison axed multiple characters, and reportedly ordered the rewriting of numerous scripts. Newspapers reported on employee dissatisfaction with Hutchison's tenure at EastEnders. In January 2005, Hutchison left the soap and John Yorke (who by this time, was the BBC Controller of Continuing Drama Series) took total control of the show himself and became acting Executive Producer for a short period, before appointing Kate Harwood to the role. Harwood stayed at EastEnders for 20 months before being promoted by the BBC. The highly anticipated return of Ross Kemp as Grant Mitchell in October 2005 proved to be a sudden major ratings success, with the first two episodes consolidating to ratings of 13.21 to 13.34 million viewers. On Friday 11 November 2005, EastEnders was the first British drama to feature a two-minute silence. This episode later went on to win British Soap Award for "Best Single Episode". In October 2006, Diederick Santer took over as Executive Producer of EastEnders. He introduced several characters to the show, including ethnic minority and homosexual characters to make the show "feel more 21st Century". Santer also reintroduced past and popular characters to the programme.