Jay Hunt (television executive)

Jacqueline Leigh "Jay" Hunt (born 20 January 1967^[1]) is an Australian-born British television executive.

Since January 2011, Hunt has been the Chief Creative Officer of Channel 4.^[2] She has previously served as Director of Programmes at Channel 5, and as Controller of BBC One. She is the only person to have led all three channels. Under her leadership, Channel 4 was named Channel of the Year at the 2014 Edinburgh International Television Festival^[3] and Broadcast magazine's Channel of the Year in 2016.^[4]

Early life

Hunt was born in Sydney, Australia, and lived in Pittsburgh and Crete before moving permanently to London. Hunt's father John was Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School. Her sister is Kristina Murrin, an innovator and former Government policy advisor.

Hunt was educated at the independent Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, West London, followed by St John's College at the University of Cambridge, where she read English.^[5]

Career

Hunt joined the BBC in 1989 as a researcher, working on BBC Breakfast News. She went on to work on Newsnight and Panorama, subsequently becoming editor of the BBC's One O'Clock News and the Six O'Clock News. She led outside broadcast teams to cover the handover of Hong Kong to China and the first multiracial elections in South Africa.

Hunt became BBC Birmingham's Executive Producer for Daytime in 2002, being promoted to Senior Commissioning Executive for Daytime in 2003 and then Controller of BBC Daytime and Early Peak with responsibility for programming across both BBC One and BBC Two between 9am and 7pm. In this role, she commissioned Great British Menu, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, The Heirhunters, Missing.

Hunt left the BBC for eight months in 2007, to replace Dan Chambers as Controller of Programmes for Five, and hired Natasha Kaplinsky from the BBC shortly afterwards.^[6][7][8] At Five, she commissioned Cowboy Builders, Extreme Fishing with Robson Green, Police Interceptors, Breaking into Tesco and Britain's Best Home.

On 3 December 2007 it was announced that she would be returning to the BBC to take up the vacant post of Controller of BBC One in early 2008, replacing the resigning Peter Fincham following criticism over the handling of A Year with the Queen.^[9] She worked her notice at five until April 2008 before returning to the BBC as Controller, BBC One. In 2009 Hunt was accused of a conflict of interest after it was revealed she was secretary of a production company owned by her husband which had a contract with the BBC. The BBC said this did not breach their conflict of interest policy.^[10]

In 2008 and 2009 BBC One won MGEITF Terrestrial Channel of the Year. At BBC One her commissions included Sherlock, Mrs Brown's Boys, Luther, Criminal Justice, Five Daughters, Bang goes the Theory, The Day the Immigrants Left and Famous, Rich and Homeless. She also commissioned Michael McIntyre's and John Bishop's first network shows.

In September 2010, Channel 4 announced Hunt's appointment to the new post of Chief Creative Officer. Immediately placed on "gardening leave" from the BBC, she joined Channel 4 in January 2011. While on leave, Hunt was a witness at the employment tribunal of former-Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly, who accused Hunt of ageism and sexism.^[11] In January 2011, the day after Hunt began working at Channel 4, O'Reilly's claims for age discrimination and victimisation were upheld but the sexism claim was dismissed.^[12] As part of her strategy to improve the quality of Channel 4 News, from spring 2011 Hunt hired Matt Frei (Washington), Jackie Long (Social Affairs) and Michael Crick (Political Correspondent) from the BBC.

Hunt has led what has been termed a ‘creative renaissance’^[13] at Channel 4,^[14] with her commissions including Humans, Catastrophe, Gogglebox, Indian Summers, The Island, The Undateables, Hunted, Benefit Street, First Dates, Child Genius and The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds. She led the team that delivered the BAFTA award winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games^[15] and in 2015 brought Formula One to Channel 4 with a new three-year deal for the sport.^[16]

Under her leadership, Channel 4 was named The Edinburgh TV Festival Channel of the Year in 2014 ^[17] and 2016,^[18] and Broadcast Channel of the Year in 2016 – with the channel receiving an unprecedented range of industry awards including more BAFTA TV awards than any other channel in 2014 ^[19] and 2015,^[20] and more Royal Television Society Programme Awards than any other channel in 2014 ^[21] and 2016.^[22] In 2015, Channel 4’s audience share increased for the first time in nine years.^[23]

In March 2016 Hunt delivered a Royal Television Society speech reflecting on her first five years at Channel 4 and the new creative culture she had established at the broadcaster.^[24] In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.^[25]

Personal life

In June 2005 Hunt married Ian Blandford, a former BBC News employee who now works for the BBC College of Journalism and runs Brightspark TV. They have a son and daughter and live in Clapham.

References

External links

• Jay Hunt at the Internet Movie Database
• Jay Hunt profile on Royal Television Society website
• BBC Press release 3 December 2007
• BBC News - Hunt becomes BBC One's controller