Lorraine Heggessey interview, continued ...
"I remember seeing the first episode of 24, where a plane blows up in the middle of the sky," she says. "With American shows like 24 and Lost, it can cost $10 million just to make a pilot, which may not even see the light of day. We just don't have that kind of backing in Britain, so we're competing on the world stage with one hand tied behind our back." British game-show and quiz formats, from Millionaire to Pop Idol, have successfully transferred across the world, she points out, as have factual shows such as Wife Swap. Yet most UK drama is targeted only at the domestic market. "We have the creative talent to make our own Desperate Housewives or Six Feet Under, but we need a new financial model. Maybe Gordon Brown will have to bring back tax breaks."
Other current concerns include a fight with the broadcasters for a greater share of programme multimedia rights - phone downloads will be increasingly valuable for programmes such as The X Factor - and another with regulators to allow Talkback Thames to qualify as an independent supplier to the BBC ("it's bonkers").
Then there are her more personal battles against the petty misogyny of television. Coming from the likes of Michael Buerk, complaints about "almost all the big jobs in broadcasting" being held by women are "out of order", she says. "It's a grumpy old man's perspective, and maybe one day I'll be a grumpy old woman and complain about everything, but I hope not. Stop going on, you did things your way when you were there, now let the next lot of people run things the way they want to."
She was more surprised by comments last month from Esther Rantzen in Broadcast magazine. Women, Rantzen suggested, "don't necessarily make good bosses" because of their aggression, autocratic and bullying natures. Heggessey confronted her at a subsequent awards ceremony.
"I took issue with her for saying that the women running television are a bad lot, because I don't think that is the case," she says. "Women have other fantastic skills that men generally don't have - they are more emotionally intelligent, more collaborative, they can multi-skill. And on the whole they are not afraid to have the tough conversations that men shy from. Look, we have enough men who knock us. I'm not saying have solidarity for the sake of it, but let's not make sweeping generalisations."
What of the new man at BBC1? Peter Fincham, the former boss at Talkback Thames, has already declared his intention to rid the channel of much that is " miserable and depressive", to take more risks, and to cut back on "tired" genres such as docusoaps, according to leaked comments. Could that not be interpreted as further criticism of Heggessey's regime? "I think Peter's absolutely the right person for the job," she replies. But he did say that he would take more risks ... "I've always been a huge risk-taker," Heggessey says sharply. "It's usually when you go against what you feel that things go wrong. The great thing here is that I can follow my instincts."
Now, though, it will be the cold realities of the marketplace that will determine whether she succeeds. "Nobody at the BBC is going to see me just to be nice," she says. "I know I'm going to get my rejections along with everybody else. But I didn't get where I am today by taking no for an answer."
(Evening Standard, January 4 2006)
Other current concerns include a fight with the broadcasters for a greater share of programme multimedia rights - phone downloads will be increasingly valuable for programmes such as The X Factor - and another with regulators to allow Talkback Thames to qualify as an independent supplier to the BBC ("it's bonkers").
Then there are her more personal battles against the petty misogyny of television. Coming from the likes of Michael Buerk, complaints about "almost all the big jobs in broadcasting" being held by women are "out of order", she says. "It's a grumpy old man's perspective, and maybe one day I'll be a grumpy old woman and complain about everything, but I hope not. Stop going on, you did things your way when you were there, now let the next lot of people run things the way they want to."
She was more surprised by comments last month from Esther Rantzen in Broadcast magazine. Women, Rantzen suggested, "don't necessarily make good bosses" because of their aggression, autocratic and bullying natures. Heggessey confronted her at a subsequent awards ceremony.
"I took issue with her for saying that the women running television are a bad lot, because I don't think that is the case," she says. "Women have other fantastic skills that men generally don't have - they are more emotionally intelligent, more collaborative, they can multi-skill. And on the whole they are not afraid to have the tough conversations that men shy from. Look, we have enough men who knock us. I'm not saying have solidarity for the sake of it, but let's not make sweeping generalisations."
What of the new man at BBC1? Peter Fincham, the former boss at Talkback Thames, has already declared his intention to rid the channel of much that is " miserable and depressive", to take more risks, and to cut back on "tired" genres such as docusoaps, according to leaked comments. Could that not be interpreted as further criticism of Heggessey's regime? "I think Peter's absolutely the right person for the job," she replies. But he did say that he would take more risks ... "I've always been a huge risk-taker," Heggessey says sharply. "It's usually when you go against what you feel that things go wrong. The great thing here is that I can follow my instincts."
Now, though, it will be the cold realities of the marketplace that will determine whether she succeeds. "Nobody at the BBC is going to see me just to be nice," she says. "I know I'm going to get my rejections along with everybody else. But I didn't get where I am today by taking no for an answer."
(Evening Standard, January 4 2006)
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