Television Committee

28 June 12

The Television committee is not only involved in the content and presentation of the annual Television Awards and Television Craft Awards (considering categories, chairing juries, providing key editorial advice, recommending Gift of Council awards) but is also involved in producing membership events throughout the year. The committee's credits include some of the very best in British television.

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Andrew Newman
_{Chair of the Television Committee}

Andrew Newman started out in television as a runner on The Big Breakfast. He went on to work on some landmark entertainment and comedy shows (mainly landmark in terms of taste and decency) including The Word and Brass Eye. After a stint at the BBC, he developed The Eleven O’Clock Show at the then small indie, talkbackTHAMES and devised the Ali G strand with Sacha Baron Cohen.

In 1998 he became a Channel4 commissioning editor, overseeing programmes including TFI Friday, Da Ali G Show and The Adam and Joe Show. In 2001 he was made the Head of Programmes for the launch of E4 and commissioned shows including Banzai and Big Brother’s Little Brother and put live streaming on television for the first time. After a stint as controller at Five, he returned to Channel4 as Head of Comedy & Entertainment, commissioning shows including The Friday Night Project, 8/10 Cats, Bo Selecta, Peep Show, The IT Crowd, Fonejacker, The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year, Derren Brown, Star Stories, Charlie Brooker’s You Have Been Watching, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Dead Set and The Inbetweeners and occasionally took time out to write on the Borat and Bruno movies.

He left Channel 4 to become Chief Executive at Objective Productions, makers of Derren Brown, Peep Show, The Cube, The Real Hustle, Star Stories, Undercover Princesses in late 2009. He has been on the BAFTA TV committee since 2007 and the Deputy Chairman since 2009.

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Jane Lush
_{Deputy Chair of the Television Committee}

Jane was a programme maker for many years before becoming the BBC’s Controller of Daytime where she commissioned Weakest Link and Doctors – a stepping stone for countless actors, writers, directors and crews. She left the BBC in 2005 as Controller Entertainment and Comedy responsible for Strictly Come Dancing, Catherine Tate, The Apprentice and Dragons Den. Since then, she has been growing and establishing a new indie, Splash Media.

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Neil Grant

Neil joined Mentorn Media in May 2007 after working for the BBC's current affairs and documentary departments for 17 years. He currently runs Mentorn Wales and from London, Executive Produces network programmes in documentaries and specialist factual. Recent commissions have included, Fish town for Sky Atlantic; For Neda for HBO; John Sergeant's on Tracks of Empire for BBC FOUR; The Man Who Can't Stop Hiccupping for BBC ONE; Rolf on Welsh Art, Hidden Houses of Wales and Hotel Stephanie for BBC Wales; Jacques Peretti's Michael Jackson's Last Days, co-exec'ed with Steve Anderson, and Madonna and Child What Really Happened for C4; My Big Fat Cycle Challenge and At Home With The Hattons for Sky and Dangerous Adventures for Boys for Five.

Before joining Mentorn Media he made numerous award-winning and nominated programmes including Hotel BBC ONE, Fighting the War BBC TWO, The Oklahoma Bomber and The Boys That Killed Stephen Lawrence BBC ONE. Other credits include; Soldier, Husband, Daughter, Dad BBC ONE (as Exec Producer), Inside Story BBC ONE, IKEA Drives Me Crazy BBC TWO (as Exec Producer); Sale Fever BBC TWO (as Exec Producer); Grandchild of the Holocaust BBCONE (as Exec Producer); Defence of the Realm BBC ONE, States of Terror BBC ONE; Panorama BBC ONE; Public Eye BBC TWO.

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Krishnendu Majumdar

Krishnendu is an award-winning producer and director. He won the John Brabourne Big Five film award and a Mental Health in Media Award in 2008. His work has been shortlisted for a Grierson Award and nominated for a British Comedy Award, a Royal Television Society Award, a National Television Award, a Broadcast Award as well as 2 BAFTAs. He was uniquely trained on the prestigious BBC Production Trainee scheme, the ITN News Trainee scheme and the BBC Drama Series Directors Academy.

He was Series Director of An Idiot Abroad Executive Produced by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and starring Karl Pilkington, which broke viewing records for Sky1HD. He was Executive Producer and also directed 2 episodes on the second series which was a worldwide hit. He is currently Executive Producer on An Idiot Abroad 3 – a 3 part Christmas special for Sky1HD.

He is on the Board of Directors UK and he was on the BAFTA Board of Trustees and Chairman of the BAFTA Learning and Events committee from 2006-10. He has co-founded an independent production company with Richard Yee called Me & You Productions. They are developing a slate of factual, comedy and drama projects.

Films produced and directed include: The Happiness Salesman; True Stories: What’s Killing Darcus Howe? (More4); Bleach, Nip, Tuck: The White Beauty Myth (C4); The World’s Smallest Man and Me (C4); Michael Howard: No More Mr Nasty (BBC2); Coked Up Britain (Sky) and the BAFTA-nominated Who You Callin' A Nigger? (C4).

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Anne Morrison

Anne Morrison is Director, BBC Academy. She took up the post in June 2009 to launch this new organisation within the BBC, responsible for all of its training and development.

This post follows on from her role as Project Director of Network Supply Review, the BBC's ambitious plan to grow network TV production dramatically from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by 2012. Prior to this Anne was Controller, Documentaries and Contemporary Factual, BBC.

Under her leadership, this factual TV production department made programmes such as the drama-documentary Dunkirk, investigations such as The Secret Policeman and Whistleblower, live events such as The Queen's Jubilee and Live8; launched documentary strands One Life and Mischief; made contemporary factual programmes such as What Not To Wear and relaunched Top Gear.

Anne began her career at the BBC in 1981 as a general trainee and then joined Documentary Features where she directed and produced a range of documentaries. She also produced Holiday and executive produced Crimewatch and Rough Justice. Anne was educated in Belfast and Churchill College, Cambridge.

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Julian Scott

Julian Scott runs Coolabi Productions, a division of Coolabi plc; a public traded company focussing on the ownership and exploitation of high quality intellectual property assets.

Prior to Coolabi Julian ran Zenith Entertainment's children's division where he oversaw over 100 episodes of live action drama series Byker Grove and Out There for CBBC and animation such as King Arthur's Disasters for CiTV. Prior to Zenith, Julian worked in New York for Sesame Workshop, most recently as Group Vice President, European Operations and prior to that as Group Vice President, Creative Development. During this time he was credited with creating the most active development slate in the history of the company and built strategic partnerships and relationships for the Workshop around the world. Before locating to the US, Julian was Head of Production and Operations at Walt Disney Television International in London, overseeing 33 branded productions across the world.

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Andre Singer

Andre was awarded his doctorate from Oxford University as an anthropologist specializing in Iran and Afghanistan. He moved into television in the seventies to work on anthropological films. He is the author of four books of non-fiction. His executive experience runs from being Series Editor of Disappearing World, to heading the BBC Documentary Department’s Independent Unit where he was responsible for such series as Pole to Pole, Madness and The Visit. He set up the Fine Cut series (later Storyville) and worked with international filmmakers including Jean Rouch, D.B. Pennebaker, Bob Drew and Fred Wiseman. Under the auspices of his own company, Singer was executive producer on many international series and in 2001 became Senior Vice-President, European Productions for Alliance Atlantis Plc and administered the UK-Canada Trade treaty for their television productions alongside the DCMS. He has worked as producer or executive producer on eight films with Werner Herzog including The Wild Blue Yonder and Into the Abyss. After working with Stephen Fry on HIV & Me, Stephen Fry in America and Last Chance to See, Singer set up Spring Films and is currently co-producing a series with Werner Herzog about Death Row.

Andre Singer is a Vice-President of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Chairman of their Film Committee and Adjunct Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California.

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Lucy Lumsden

Prior to her role at Sky as Head of Comedy, Lucy Lumsden was at the BBC for 11 years, she was the corporation’s first Controller of Comedy Commissioning from 2005 to 2009. In November 2009 she joined Sky to work for Stuart Murphy, where she implemented a multi-million pound comedy strategy to deliver original British scripted comedy for Sky 1HD, Sky Living, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts.

During her time at the BBC, Lucy was responsible for commissioning scripted comedy from both in-house and the independent sector and developed, commissioned and worked with the very best in British comedy to produce an impressive array of hits across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four. This includes the award-winning Outnumbered, Gavin and Stacey, Rev, Grandma’s House, The Trip, The Catherine Tate Show, Miranda, Lead Balloon, Reggie Perrin, Harry & Paul, Armstrong & Miller, My Family and The Worst Week of My Life. Many of BBC Three’s early successes were in collaboration with then channel controller Stuart Murphy: Gavin and Stacey, Nighty Night, Pulling, The Mighty Boosh, Ideal and Drop Dead Gorgeous.

Lucy began her career in television in 1992 working at the Comic Strip for BBC Two, then worked across a number of comedies, drama serials and documentaries until she joined the BBC in 1998.

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Steve Gowans

Steve spent over a decade in production, making shows for all terrestrial broadcasters across a variety of genres - news, sport and factual entertainment - before becoming Head of Entertainment for Chrysalis Television in 2001. In 2004, he joined Channel 5 as head of factual entertainment and is still with the broadcaster, now running all the channel's entertainment, features, fact ent and sports programming.

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Brian Woods

Brian started True Vision in 1995. Its first production, The Dying Rooms, was nominated for 2 BAFTAs and won numerous other awards including an Emmy and the Prix Italia. Brian has produced and directed numerous international documentaries through True Vision for the BBC, Channel Four, HBO and Discovery. Mostly tackling human rights and social issuest, they have garnered awards, including 7 Emmies, 2 Peabodies and 7 BAFTAs.

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Olivia Lichtenstein

Olivia Lichtenstein is a BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker and the former editor of BBC television’s Inside Story. Other awards include Grierson and RTS. While at the BBC she commissioned over a hundred single documentaries and was executive producer of a raft of documentary series for BBC ONE, among them: HMS Brilliant; Making Babies; Law Women; The Cruise; The Shop; Fat Free; Animal Police; The Builders; Jailbirds; HMS Splendid; Gulag; Burgled: Soldiers to Be; Eyes of a Child; Boss Women; Fergal Keane’s Forgotten Britain; Mountain Men; Through the Eyes of the Old; Through the Eyes of the Young…

Olivia spent a year on attachment to BBC Drama developing projects before being appointed Creative Director of BBC Documentaries, London. She left the BBC in 2002 to become a freelance producer/director and writer. As a drama director, she has directed BBC ONE's Holby City and numerous episodes of The Bill.

Last year she produced and directed Prince Philip at 90 for ITV1 and The Twins of the Twin Towers for BBC ONE to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11. She is currently producing and directing, Inside Guinness World Records for ITV1.

Olivia is a partner at independent production company, Storyvault Films. She is the author of two novels, Things Your Mother Never Told You and Mrs Zhivago of Queen’s Park. Olivia was educated at Sussex University and UCLA.

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James Dean

Biography to follow

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Steve November
ITV Head of Continuing Drama

Biography to follow

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