Lorraine Heggessey - BBC One

BBC One

In 1999 she was promoted to Director of Programmes and Deputy Chief Executive of the BBC's in-house production arm, BBC Production, responsible for supervising in-house output across all the various genres. She was in this role for little over a year however before she was promoted to Controller of BBC One, a post she took up on 1 November 2000. In this position she was responsible for co-commissioning the channel's output with the various heads of department — drama, news, etc. — and deciding the channel's overall strategy and schedule. She had previously been sounded out about the job in 1997, after Michael Jackson's departure, but had turned down the opportunity as she felt she was then not yet experienced enough.

During Heggessey's five years in charge, BBC One's audience share fell by 19.9%, to 23%, although this was in the context of declining audience figures across all British television channels due to increased competition from multichannel digital television. However, in 2001 BBC One overtook its main rival ITV1 in terms of annual audience share for the first time since the rival channel had launched in 1955, although much of this was down to the success of the channel's daytime television line-up, which had its own Controller in Jane Lush.

When Heggessey arrived at the channel in November 2000, she inherited two controversial schedule changes which had been implemented the previous month, at the behest of Director-General of the BBC Greg Dyke; the main evening BBC News bulletin had been moved from 9pm to 10pm, and Panorama moved from a Monday night prime time slot to a later slot on Sunday nights. The moving of Panorama attracted criticism that BBC One was sidelining serious programming in favour of more populist output. Heggessey publicly defended the decision despite it not being hers, claiming that Panorama's ratings would have "dwindled" in its previous slot.

Heggessey and the BBC's Controller of Drama Commissioning, Jane Tranter, took advantage of the weekday 9pm slot opened up by the moving of the news to commission new popular drama output, such as the successful Waking the Dead (2000–2011) and Spooks (2002–2011). Celebrity dancing show Strictly Come Dancing (2004–present) was also a popular success on Saturday nights, although another Saturday night entertainment series, Fame Academy, faced accusations of being too derivative of the output of commercial rivals, and during Heggessey's era the channel frequently came under attack for being too populist and not providing enough serious programming.

Heggessey did later concede in a 2005 interview with The Independent newspaper that arts programming had suffered a cutback under her control of BBC One. However, she did respond to this omission following criticism from the Board of Governors of the BBC by commissioning programmes such as the arts documentary series Imagine... (2003–present) and A Picture of Britain (2005).

In 2002, Heggessey took the decision to abandon the traditional "Globe" idents the channel had used in a variety of forms for its between-programme idents since 1963. They were replaced by a new style of on-air identity for the channel, the "Rhythm & Movement" idents. The new idents attracted some criticism for going against the traditions of the channel and pandering to political correctness, as they featured activities performed by people of various ethnicities.

One of Heggessey's most notable decisions and last major success at the channel was the re-commissioning of the science-fiction drama series Doctor Who, which had been a popular hit in previous decades but ceased production in 1989. Heggessey and Jane Tranter commissioned a new version of the series in September 2003, after Heggessey had spent two years persuading the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, to abandon their attempts to make a feature film version of the programme and allow it instead to return to BBC One. The new version of Doctor Who (2005–present) debuted on 26 March 2005 and became a critical and popular hit, with Paul Hoggart of The Times newspaper describing the series as "a joyful, exuberant reinvention and a fine legacy from Ms Heggessey."

On 14 February 2005 it was announced that Lorraine Heggessey was to leave the BBC to take up the post of Chief Executive at production company Talkback Thames. She left on 15 April. Five months after her departure, BBC One was named "Channel of the Year" at the Edinburgh Television Festival, primarily on the strength of Heggessey commissions such as Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who.