Jana Bennett
Encyclopedia
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 1956) is Director of Vision at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. She took up the post in 2006, having been Director of Television from April 2002. She was previously Executive Vice President and General Manager at Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications
Discovery Communications, Inc. is an American global media and entertainment company. The company started as a single channel in 1985, The Discovery Channel. Today, DCI has global operations offering 28 network entertainment brands on more than 100 channels in more than 180 countries in 39...
in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. As Director of BBC Vision, she “heads the largest multi-media production, commissioning and broadcast group of its kind in the world,”, with overall responsibility for BBC Television and its online services, BBC Films and BBC Productions. In her two most recent roles at the BBC, Jana Bennett “steered the BBC TV portfolio through its transition into the mainstream digital age.”
Bennett is also a Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, a Fellow of the Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...
and a Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
Trustee.
Education
Born in Cooperstown, New York StateCooperstown, New York
Cooperstown is a village in Otsego County, New York, USA. It is located in the Town of Otsego. The population was estimated to be 1,852 at the 2010 census.The Village of Cooperstown is the county seat of Otsego County, New York...
, USA, Bennett moved to Britain in 1969, where she was educated at Bognor Regis Comprehensive School, then studied politics, philosophy and economics at St Anne’s College, Oxford. She undertook post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics where she was awarded an MSc (Dist) for her work on strategic analysis and international and defence studies.
Early BBC career
In 1979 she won a place on the BBC NewBBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
s trainee scheme, and began her first period of employment with the corporation working on radio and television news; BBC Newcastle's Look North and Radio Sheffield. She worked on Nationwide, The Money Programme
The Money Programme
The Money Programme is a finance and business affairs television programme on BBC2.It was first broadcast on 5 April 1966 and presented by "commentators" William Davis, Erskine Childers and Joe Roeber. At this time David Attenborough was the controller of BBC2...
and Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
. Whilst working on Newsnight during the Falklands War she produced many of Peter Snow
Peter Snow
Peter Snow, CBE is a British television and radio presenter. He is the grandson of First World War general Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow, and cousin of Jon Snow, the main presenter of Channel 4 News, nephew of schoolmaster and bishop George D'Oyly Snow, and the brother-in-law of historian-writer Margaret...
’s reports illustrating military clashes between the British and Argentine forces using a sand-box. These included his broadcast on 2nd May 1982 in which he referred to the unreliability of information provided by the Argentine regime of the day. He then struck a sceptical note about a report from the Ministry of Defence. Snow’s choice of words was raised in the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions and a few days later prompted a leader column in the Sun newspaper saying “there are traitors in our midst”. The BBC Chairman, George Howard
George Howard, Baron Howard of Henderskelfe
Major George Anthony Geoffrey Howard, Baron Howard of Henderskelfe, JP was a British politician, soldier and media man....
went on the record to defend the BBC's "reputation for telling the truth".
She became an award-winning producer of Panorama in 1986, and co-authored The Disappeared: Voices from a Secret War with the BBC's diplomatic editor John Simpson about the actions of Argentina's military government in the same year.
In 1990 she became editor of the BBC’s flagship science programme Horizon. Awards she won during this period included the 1991 News and Documentary Emmy
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for her role as Executive Producer of the film “Suicide Mission to Chernobyl” which also aired on the WGBH program Nova
NOVA (TV series)
Nova is a popular science television series from the U.S. produced by WGBH Boston. It can be seen on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries...
in the United States.
In 1994 she was appointed the BBC's Head of Science, the first woman to take that role. Under her leadership the department expanded the range and ambition of its programming, winning awards for series such as Walking With Dinosaurs
Walking with Dinosaurs
Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television miniseries that was produced by BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the United Kingdom, in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that...
, The Human Body and Meet The Ancestors and business formats such as Blood on the Carpet, Back to the Floor and the medical format Trust Me, I’m a Doctor. She introduced a new animal genre to UK television with the highly successful and long-running Animal Hospital, alongside live events such as Hospitalwatch. The science department also pioneered content rich web sites and was one of the first areas to use email inside the BBC.
She joined the BBC's Board of Management in 1997 as Director of Production, then became Director of Programmes for the former BBC Production division until she left the BBC to join Discovery Communications as General Manager of the TLC
TLC (TV channel)
TLC is an American cable TV specialty channel which initially focused on educational content. Since 1991 TLC has been owned by Discovery Communications, the same company that operates the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and The Science Channel, as well as other learning-themed networks...
channel in August 1999.
In 2000 she was awarded an OBE in 2000 for her work in science broadcasting.
Discovery Communications
At TLC Bennett transformed the channel's ratings and revenue performance. She introduced a new editorial direction under the slogan “Life Unscripted” which included reality-drama and interior design shows, some of them based on popular British formats. The audience success of shows like Trading SpacesTrading Spaces
Trading Spaces is an hour-long American television reality program that aired from 2000 to 2008 on the cable channels TLC and Discovery Home. The format of the show was based on the BBC TV series Changing Rooms. The show ran for eight seasons....
, and Junkyard Wars
Scrapheap Challenge
Scrapheap Challenge is an engineering game show produced by RDF Media and broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK. In the show, teams of contestants have 10 hours in which to build a working machine that can do a specific task, using materials available in a scrapheap. The format was exported to the...
exemplified a shift in programming towards more mass-appeal shows. By 2001 TLC had the youngest adult audience profile amongst US cable channels with a median age of 40 and a 15% year on year growth in audience among the 18-34 year old age group. It was also the strongest performing network for women in daytime.
Later BBC career
In 2002 Bennett returned to the UK to take the job of Director of Television. In this capacity she took charge of the launch and expansion of the BBC’s portfolio of 7 digital TV channels: BBC THREE, BBC FOUR, HD TV and the children's channels, CBBC and CBeebies This included winning the approval of the government for the launch of BBC THREE, the corporation’s youth orientated digital television channel, which at the time was considered by some to be a controversial development for the BBC.In 2006 the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson reorganised the BBC’s divisional structure, creating BBC Vision from the amalgamation of the corporation's Television, Drama Entertainment & Children's and Factual & Learning divisions. Bennett was promoted from Director of Television to Director of Vision taking "overall creative and leadership responsibility" for the commissioning, production and scheduling of television, video and online content across the BBC’s analogue and digital television networks (excluding the BBC News and Parliament channels), the web, mobile phones and interactive technology.
During her tenure, BBC television has been responsible for natural history landmarks, such as Life, worldwide entertainment hits, including Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...
[also known as Dancing With the Stars
Dancing with the Stars
Dancing with the Stars is the name of several international television series based on the format of the British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide – the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the format has been licensed to over 35 countries...
], The Apprentice and Top Gear; new comedy formats, such as Outnumbered and Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey
Gavin & Stacey is a British comedy television series. A romantic comedy-drama, the show follows the long-distance relationship of Gavin from Billericay in Essex, England, and Stacey from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. The writers of the show, actors James Corden and Ruth Jones, also...
. Dramas have ranged from period classics like Cranford to contemporary pieces such as Criminal Justice and Occupation, from science fiction in the shape of Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
and Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
to detective series such as Life on Mars, Wallander and, most recently, Sherlock.
Her division was also heavily involved in the in the planning and launch of the corporation’s on-demand service, BBC iPlayer, providing 400 hours content for the service each week. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2007, she articulated a fresh approach to the BBC's mission to inform and educate in the digital era. She has also championed new multi-media approaches to major fundraising entertainment events. In partnership with Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
, the BBC produced the first truly digital Red Nose Day in 2009.
Jana Bennett is also the architect of the BBC's out of London strategy. More recently, she launched the BBC's year of science across television, radio and online. In 2010, she also established BBC One HD, `the biggest sign yet that HD is now part of the mainstream', as well as announcing a major new Shakespeare Season and a return to live television across the evening on BBC One, celebrating the first mass television experience, the Queen's Coronation, and the BBC's final year of broadcasting from Television Centre in 2013.
In addition to the BBC branded television channels Bennett has responsibility for feature film production through BBC Films
BBC Films
BBC Films is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including An Education, StreetDance 3D, Fish Tank, Stage Beauty, A Cock and Bull Story, Nativity! and Match Point.It aims to make strong British films with...
, whose recent credits include Oscar winning Man on Wire
Man on Wire
Man on Wire is a 2008 British documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Philippe Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, recently released in paperback with the new title...
as well as BAFTA award-winners Mrs Brown, An Education
An Education
An Education is a 2009 British coming-of-age drama film, based on an autobiographical article in Granta by British journalist Lynn Barber. The film was directed by Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby, and stars Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a bright schoolgirl, and Peter Sarsgaard as David,...
, In the Loop
In the Loop (film)
In the Loop is a 2009 British satirical black comedy film directed by Armando Iannucci. It is based on the BBC Television series The Thick of It satirising Anglo-American politics in the 21st century and the Invasion of Iraq...
, Fish Tank
Fish Tank (film)
Fish Tank is a 2009 British drama film directed by Andrea Arnold. The film won the Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It also won the 2010 BAFTA for Best British Film. It was filmed in the Mardyke Estate in Havering, the town of Tilbury, and the A13, and funded by BBC Films and the UK...
and StreetDance 3D
StreetDance 3D
StreetDance 3D is a British dance film which was released on 21 May 2010. The film was released in RealD 3D, XpanD 3D, and Dolby 3D with Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini directing it. Britain's Got Talent stars George Sampson, Diversity and Flawless made their debut appearances to the big screen...
, the first 3D film produced outside the US.
Bennett is a member of the BBC’s Executive Board. The salaries of Executive Board members are published in the BBC’s annual report and their expenses have been published on a quarterly basis since April 2009. In common with other members of the board Bennett’s remuneration and expense claims have been the subject of press and political comment. In 2010 figures published by the BBC showed that Bennett had claimed £4,862 in expenses for taxi fares in 3 months. The BBC said that one of the reasons for travelling by taxi was that it allowed her to make confidential calls "in private"
She also sits on the International Academy of Television Arts' and Sciences' Executive Committee and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It also contains a lecture theatre which is used by the...
.