Jana Bennett

Jana Bennett at MIPTV Media Market

Jana Bennett OBE (born 1956) is Director of Vision at the BBC. 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 in the US. 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, a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and a Comic Relief Trustee.

Education

Born in Cooperstown, New York State, 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 News 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 and Newsnight. Whilst working on Newsnight during the Falklands War she produced many of Peter Snow’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 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 for her role as Executive Producer of the film “Suicide Mission to Chernobyl” which also aired on the WGBH program Nova 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, 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 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 Spaces, and Junkyard Wars 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 [also known as Dancing With the Stars], The Apprentice and Top Gear; new comedy formats, such as Outnumbered and Gavin & Stacey. 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 and Doctor Who 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, 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, whose recent credits include Oscar winning Man on Wire as well as BAFTA award-winners Mrs Brown, An Education, In the Loop, Fish Tank and StreetDance 3D, 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.

Personal life

Bennett is married to Richard Clemmow, a director of Perfectly Normal Productions Ltd. The couple have two children.

External links

• BBC Press Office biography