Michael Jackson (TV Executive) - Channel 4

Channel 4

At Channel 4, Jackson enjoyed several notable successes. In 1998 the channel won the rights to broadcast the England cricket team's home Test matches in a £103 million deal, for the first time in history taking the coverage away from the BBC, which had broadcast television coverage of such matches since 1938. Channel 4's coverage of the sport went on to win a British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) for Best Sports Coverage in 2000.

The channel's comedy output enjoyed particular success under Jackson's aegis, with the sitcoms Spaced (1999–2001) and Black Books (2000–04), sketch show Smack the Pony (1999–2003) and the more generally comic Da Ali G Show (2000) and So Graham Norton (1998–2002) all proving to be popular successes. However, it was the launch of the British version of Big Brother (2000–present) that proved to be his longest-lasting legacy, with the reality television series becoming an immediate popular culture event and proving to be a returning mainstay of the Channel 4 schedules.

Jackson is often cited as the reason for the channel's once flagship soap opera Brookside being removed from primetime in 2002 before being finally axed in 2003 after 21 years, so much so that the main antagonist in the soaps final 6 months was named Jack Michaelson, a drug dealer who was eventually hanged from a bedroom window in the final episode.

In drama, Jackson was at times criticised for relying more on US imports than home-grown material, with Ally McBeal, The West Wing and Sex and the City all arriving at the broadcaster during his time there. In 1999 he also spent £100 million reacquiring the rights to the US drama series ER — in a joint deal which also included the sitcom Friends — which Channel 4 had lost first-run rights for to rival broadcaster Sky1 in 1996. Home-grown drama successes were rarer, as he himself admitted in a 2001 interview with The Guardian. He did, however, point to notable British drama successes with Queer as Folk (1999–2000) and Teachers (2001–04), describing the former as one of the "signature shows" of his time at the channel.

The high spending on imported shows, however, contributed to a financial shortfall at Channel 4 that saw the channel negotiating a £55 million overdraft in his final year in charge, and by October that year having already used up most of a £49 million reserve it had set aside for the year. Jackson also later admitted that he had made a mistake in setting up the channel's independent film production company FilmFour Limited in 1998. Channel 4 had participated in feature film production ever since its launch in 1982, backing successful films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), but FilmFour Limited was an attempt to set up a full-blown rival to Hollywood studio productions. The studio saw several of its big-budget films flop, and was eventually closed down in 2002, with the channel going back to its original more modest film backing strategy. More successful spin-offs from the main channel under Jackson's control were the establishment of the offshoot digital television channels E4 and Film4, which continued to grow successfully.

In 2001 Channel 4 won eleven BAFTAs, but on 23 July that year Jackson shocked many in the British television industry when he announced that he had decided to leave the channel to work for Barry Diller's USA Entertainment company. Jackson had first been approached by Diller in 2000, but had declined his initial offer as he had wanted to remain at Channel 4 to oversee the launch of the E4 digital channel. The reaction to Jackson's departure was similar to that which had greeted his equally unexpected move from BBC One four years previously. One producer for Channel 4 told The Independent the week that his decision was announced that: "We are devastated."