Michael Jackson (TV Executive) - The BBC

The BBC

Prior to the launch of The Late Show in January 1989, there was some scepticism as to whether or not the programme, running four nights per week on BBC Two in a late night slot after Newsnight, would be a success. In a feature for The Times newspaper on television arts coverage, published two months prior to the show's launch, Brian Appleyard wrote that: "the real tension is building up around The Late Show and its young creator, Michael Jackson." Appleyard pointed out that: "the investment financial, intellectual and egotistical in the programme is enormous... Yentob is determined to put his own cultural stamp on BBC2 and Jackson has everything to prove." However, the programme went on to be a success, running for six years. Looking back at The Late Show and other television arts programming in a feature for The Guardian in 2003, David Herman felt that the programme represented the last great era of television arts coverage. "The Late Show cast its net wider in terms of formats... What drove it was the enthusiasm and passions of its presenters, producers and editors, and this built a certain eclecticism and unashamed highbrowness into its agenda... It could be argued that the real high point of intellectual life on British television was not the 1960s or the 1970s, but the decade between the beginning of Channel 4 and the end of The Late Show in 1995."

Jackson remained as editor of The Late Show for the next two years, until in 1991 he was promoted to become BBC television's Head of Music and Arts. At the age of thirty-three, he was the youngest Head of Department in the history of the BBC.

In 1993, at the age of thirty-five, he became the second youngest Channel Controller in the BBC's history when he was promoted to succeed Yentob, who had been promoted to Controller of BBC One, as Controller of BBC Two. Jackson's time at BBC Two was generally seen as a great success — he was described by The Guardian in 1996 as "one of the best controllers BBC2 has ever had." During his time in charge of the channel it increased its average audience share from 10% to 11%, and was the only channel during that period to increase its audience share in households which had cable or satellite television.

Jackson enjoyed particular success with drama at BBC Two, finally commissioning the production of Peter Flannery's serial Our Friends in the North (1996) in 1994 after the drama had spent a decade in development and been commissioned and then cancelled on two previous occasions. Its £7 million budget was a record for BBC Two, but the serial was a great success, garnering huge critical acclaim and many accolades at the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), Royal Television Society Awards and others. Other drama successes came with This Life (1996–97) and the American import The X-Files (1994–96; its ratings success on BBC Two saw it transferred to BBC One).

Other successes Jackson oversaw at the channel included the documentary series The Death of Yugoslavia (1995) and The House (1996), the daytime television series Ready Steady Cook (1994–2010) and Esther (1996–98) and the comedies The Day Today (1994), Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994) and The Fast Show (1994–2000). However, he also took the decision to cancel The Late Show, the series he himself had initiated, in 1995. "I think it simply boils down to Michael not wanting to spend that much money that late," was how one "insider" described the decision to The Sunday Times newspaper. He also delayed the transmission of the second series of the sitcom Joking Apart; this has been seen as ruining the momentum that the series needed to become established.

Jackson's next move came somewhat unexpectedly in the summer of 1996, when the Director-General of the BBC, John Birt, unveiled a series of major — and controversial — changes to the structure of the corporation. The administration of the BBC was to be split into two main divisions; BBC Broadcast, responsible for the commissioning of programmes and the running of the channels, and BBC Production, responsible for producing in-house programme content. Some of these changes were made very suddenly — Alan Yentob was informed that he was to be moved on from his post as Controller of BBC One, and allegedly given just forty-eight hours to decide whether he wanted to run BBC Broadcast as Director of Television or BBC Production as Director of Programmes.

Yentob chose the latter, which although technically a promotion was interpreted by some as him having effectively been sidelined. In his place, Jackson was promoted to a dual role as both Controller of BBC One and Director of Television, responsible overall for all BBC television broadcasting as well as the implementation of planned future services on the new digital television platforms. The Guardian suggested, in reference to Jackson's replacement of Yentob at BBC One, that "in the end Yentob was eclipsed by his protege."

Jackson had little time to make a significant impact in his new senior role at BBC One, however. He did commission a new range of idents for the channel, keeping the traditional "globe" theme used since 1963, but now based around the globe in the form of a roaming hot air balloon. But in May 1997, after less than a year in his new post and in what The Guardian described as "a hammer blow" to the BBC, Jackson was tempted away from the corporation to succeed Michael Grade as the Chief Executive of Channel 4. He took up the post at the end of June.