- Dawn Airey
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Dawn Elizabeth Airey, (born 15 November 1960, Preston in Lancashire) is a British commercial television executive. She was chairman and chief executive of Channel 5, the UK television station now owned by Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell. After its change of ownership in 2010, it was announced Airey would join former owners RTL - she left Channel 5 at the end of October after a handover period.
Contents
Early life
Airey was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she read Geography. She had attended a local comprehensive, then a boys' private school (Kelly College) which had a mixed sixth form. Her parents, who were from Liverpool, divorced when she was in her teens, and she subsequently lived with her father for a short period, structural engineer Clifford Airey.
Career
After failing in her attempt to win a BBC traineeship, Airey chose the commercial route by becoming a management trainee for Central Independent Television in 1985 under the wing of then director of programmes, Andy Allen. Promotion followed. In 1989 she became Director of Programme Planning at Central and was appointed to the Central broadcasting board. When the ITV Network Centre was established in 1993, she moved to London to become Controller of Children's and Daytime Programmes.
In 1994, she became Controller of Arts and Entertainment at Channel 4, chaired by Michael Grade. It was reported in The Sunday Times[1] that her forthright manner had earned her the soubriquets "Scary Airey" and "Zulu Dawn", with colleagues describing her as "the most vulgar person" they had ever met.[2]
Airey joined Channel 5 in 1996, the year before its launch, as its first director of programmes. It was during her tenure that she famously agreed with an interviewer that the channel's core strengths were "films, football and fucking".[3] She was subsequently appointed as chief executive of the channel in 2000.
In 2002, it was widely touted that ITV plc was hoping to recruit Airey as its chief executive. However she surprised the television industry by instead accepting a position at the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB.[4] There she was responsible for running all Sky channels, except Sky Sports, and was placed in charge of programming and advertising sales. In 2006 she was made Managing Director of Channels and Services whereupon she gained additional responsibility for all third party channels, joint ventures and networked media.
Airey left BSkyB to head up an independent production business backed by private investors however she was only with the company for a total of eight days before it was announced that the venture did not have sufficient cash to continue trading.[5] Soon after, in May 2007, she was reunited with Michael Grade, joining ITV plc as Director of Global Content,[6] running the broadcaster's production and global sales division. But the reunion did not last long.
She earned Grade's enmity when, after eight months in the job, she quit to rejoin Channel 5 in May 2008 as its chairman and CEO, with a remit to increase profitability and audience share.[7] On 11 August 2010 it was announced Airey would leave Channel 5 to take up a senior post with RTL, its former owners, later in 2010.[8]
Personal life
Airey is a member of the board of the British Library, a trustee of The Media Trust [9] from April 2004 until October 2010, a patron of the Banff World Television Festival and a vice-president of the Royal Television Society. She is a former non-executive director of the airline easyJet.
In 2006 she was named as one of the 100 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK by the Independent.[10] Dawn Airey entered into a civil partnership with Jacquie Lawrence in February 2007, a television producer; Lawrence gave birth to the couple's daughter a month later.[11]
References
- ^ http://625.uk.com/channel5/ The Sunday Times, (30 March 1997)
- ^ http://625.uk.com/channel5/ The Sunday Times, (30 March 1997)
- ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-astute-businessman-who-gave-us-kirsty-and-cheggers-634822.html The Independent, (28 October 2000)
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1407948/ITV-foiled-as-Dawn-Airey-signs-for-Sky-in-1m-a-year-deal.html Daily Telegraph, (22 September 2002)
- ^ http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/dawn-airey-tv-start-up-iostar-faces-closure-within-weeks/2056014.article
- ^ http://www.itvplc.com/investors/regulatoryannounements/?dateMode=years&filterType1=text&year=2007&filterArg1=airey&range=today&filterType2=date&id=16253
- ^ Sweney, Mark (27 August 2008). "Five insists Airey will start in October". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/27/channelfive.itv.
- ^ Tara Conlan and Mark Sweney "Channel Five 'bloodbath' as Richard Desmond culls seven directors", The Guardian, 11 August 2010
- ^ "Media Trust website". http://www.mediatrust.org.
- ^ The Independent, (2 July 2006), Gay Power: The pink list. Retrieved 25 June 2007
- ^ Maggie Brown "The Guardian profile: Dawn Airey", The Guardian, 2 May 2008
External links
Categories:- 1960 births
- Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge
- English television executives
- Channel 5 (UK)
- Living people
- Old Kelleians
- People from Preston, Lancashire
- LGBT people from England
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