Danny Cohen (television executive)

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Danny Cohen
Born
Daniel Nicholas Cohen

(1974-01-15) 15 January 1974 (age 50)[1]
Westminster, London, England
EducationCity of London School
Alma materLady Margaret Hall, Oxford
EmployerAccess Entertainment
Known forContribution to comedy and entertainment
TitleController of BBC Three (2007–2010)
Controller of BBC One (2010–2013)
Director of BBC Television (2013–2015)
President of Access Entertainment (2016–present)
Spouse
(m. 2012)

Daniel Nicholas Cohen (born 15 January 1974) is a British television executive who currently serves as President of Access Entertainment which invests in film, television and digital companies and content. He was previously the Director of BBC Television from 2013 to 2015.[2] Before that, he was the Controller of BBC One for three years,[3] the BBC's principal television channel in the United Kingdom[4] and the youngest person to be appointed as controller of the channel. During his time at the BBC, he led BBC One's coverage of the 2012 London Olympics.

Education

Cohen was born in

Double First.[6]

Career

Channel 4

Between 2000 and 2007, Cohen worked at Channel 4 and its youth service E4. His roles there included Head of Documentaries for Channel 4 and Head of E4.

Cohen's television commissions in this period included Skins, The Inbetweeners, Fonejacker, Supernanny and the documentary strand Cutting Edge.[7]

Controller of BBC Three

Between May 2007 and October 2010, Cohen was the Controller of

.

Alongside these commissions, he also acquired Summer Heights High from Australia and built a strong following for US animation Family Guy. He also revamped the hourly bulletins 60 Seconds adding a World News update.

In February 2008, The Times newspaper described Cohen as "the boy wonder of British television".[9] In January 2009, the Royal Television Society's magazine Television wrote an article about Cohen which posed the question of whether "the 34-year-old wunderkind" would be Director General of the BBC by his early forties.[10]

Controller of BBC One

As Controller of BBC One between 2010 and 2013, Cohen's commissions included: Call The Midwife, Happy Valley, Car-Share, Poldark, The Casual Vacancy, The Voice, Last Tango in Halifax, Eat Well For Less, The Missing and the forthcoming Dickensian and War and Peace.

In 2012, BBC One had a record-breaking year with its largest ever growth in peak audience share and its first all-hours audience share growth on record.[11]

Director of BBC Television

In May 2013, Cohen became Director of

BBC Films, and the BBC's content on its digital platform, BBC iPlayer.[7] In 2014, BBC Television was the most successful UK television network, and in the first quarter of 2015, the BBC's main network, BBC One, delivered its best start to the year in a decade with a prime-time audience share of 25.2%.[12]

In October 2015, Cohen announced that he was leaving the BBC to pursue a new leadership challenge. On the announcement of his departure, the Director-General of the BBC, Tony Hall, said: "Danny has done an extraordinary job over the last eight years at the BBC. In a world of intense competition and choice, he has further enhanced the BBC's reputation for quality programming that is full of ambition and creativity... and has also made an outstanding contribution to comedy and entertainment".[13]

President of Access Entertainment

In May 2016, Cohen launched Access Entertainment with the industrialist

Len Blavatnik. The company has set out an ambition to be 'one of the world's leading independent investors in the entertainment media sector...with a concentration in high-quality television, films and theatrical productions'. The company aims to invest 'several hundred million dollars in the initial phase'.[14]

Controversies

Jimmy Savile and Pollard report

The Pollard review into

Newsnight's decision to drop an investigation into sex abuse claims against Jimmy Savile found that Cohen had not read emails that had been copied to him warning of Savile's "dark side" and which indicated there was knowledge within the BBC of the unsavoury side of Savile's character. Had he done so "it was at least possible that further questions [on the advisability of running the Christmas 2011 tributes] would have followed".[15][16]

Jeremy Clarkson

The former BBC presenter,

Amazon Video's movements in Europe. In early 2016, it was said there was a chance Cohen could have become Clarkson's boss on the factual entertainment series The Grand Tour.[18]

Personal life

Cohen is married to economist and author

Chief Rabbi, and attended by guests including Rachel Weisz, Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi. They live in Primrose Hill, London.[19][20][21]

A prominent figure in London's Jewish community, in an interview in 2014 Cohen said that he had "never felt so uncomfortable as a Jew in the UK".

antisemitism in the Labour Party and suggested that voting for Jeremy Corbyn would be like being a Muslim and voting for Donald Trump.[23]

References

  1. ^ Plunkett, John (15 October 2015). "Danny Cohen: the political animal who got rid of Jeremy Clarkson". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  2. ^ "Danny Cohen named as new BBC director of television", BBC News, 23 April 2013
  3. ^ "BBC iPlayer – BBC One". Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  4. ^ "BBC – Press Office – BBC Three Winter/Spring 2008: Danny Cohen". Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  5. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 28 May 2019.
  6. ^ a b "Action station: the controller who is not ready to grow old just yet". The Independent. 26 January 2009. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  7. ^ a b "BBC – Danny Cohen, director, TV – Inside the BBC". BBC. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Entertainment – BBC channels win festival awards". 23 August 2008. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  9. ^ Sabbagh, Dan. "BBC Three pins relaunch hopes on integration of TV and web". The Times. Retrieved 21 November 2023.
  10. ^ "Royal Television Society". Archived from the original on 3 July 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2009.
  11. ^ "BBC – BBC One scores record breaking performance in 2012 – Media Centre". BBC. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
  12. ^ Shawley, Pippa (8 April 2015). "BBC One reports strongest first quarter in a decade". Royal Television Society. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
  13. ^ "Danny Cohen to leave the BBC". BBC Media Centre. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  14. ^ "Former BBC TV Boss Danny Cohen Joins Len Blavatnik to Launch Access Entertainment". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 15 June 2016.
  15. ^ Thorpe, Vanessa (23 February 2013). "BBC knew of Jimmy Savile's 'dark side' before tribute aired". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  16. ^ Cohen, Nick (8 March 2015). "The sinister treatment of dissent at the BBC | Nick Cohen". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2015.
  17. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 8 November 2016.
  18. . Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  19. ^ "Danny Cohen to be BBC's director of television". www.thejc.com. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  20. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  21. ^ "Noreena Hertz". Jewish Lives Project. Retrieved 21 March 2019.[permanent dead link]
  22. ^ Burrell, Ian (22 December 2014). "BBC director: Rising UK antisemitism makes me more uncomfortable than ever". The Independent. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
  23. ^ Rigby, Elizabeth (16 April 2016). "How can Jews vote for Corbyn, asks former BBC chief". The Times. Retrieved 16 April 2016. (subscription required)

External links

Media offices
Preceded by Controller of BBC Three
2007–2010
Succeeded by
Preceded by Controller of BBC One
2010–2013
Succeeded by