MacTaggart Lecture
ITV’s new Director of Television, Former BBC One Controller and award-winning television producer Peter Fincham will give this year’s MacTaggart Lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Peter Fincham said “Being invited to deliver the MacTaggart is like being asked to be a guest on Desert Island Discs – you don’t turn it down. It’s an enormous honour, as well as an opportunity to reflect on the enormous challenges facing the broadcasting industry in the digital age. I’m looking forward to it with relish.”
Instituted 32 years ago to open the annual Edinburgh International Television Festival, the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture always attracts major names in UK and international broadcasting and is known for producing controversial and agenda-setting speeches. Past MacTaggart speakers include Dennis Potter, Michael Grade, Rupert Murdoch, Janet Street-Porter, Ted Turner, Peter Bazalgette, Greg Dyke, David Liddiment, Mark Thompson, Tony Ball, John Humphrys, Lord Birt, Charles Allen and, in 2007, Jeremy Paxman.
Andrew MacKenzie, 2008 MGEITF Advisory Chair and Head Of Factual Entertainment at Channel Four comments, “I'm thrilled that Peter's agreed to deliver this year's MacTaggart. He's uniquely placed as an industry figure who’s not only built a successful super-indie but has also held one of the most powerful positions in British broadcasting. Even the Queen's heard of him. Now as an independent voice he has an ideal perspective to deliver a memorable speech.”
Tim Hincks, MGEITF Executive Chair and Chief Creative Officer at Endemol UK adds, “Peter is a true TV creative who has been phenomenally successful both as producer and broadcaster. And rather unfashionably, he's a huge fan of telly and the people who work in it. I'm delighted he has agreed to break his solemn vow of silence at Edinburgh this year."
The MacTaggart Lecture will take place on Friday 22 August at 18.45pm.
Peter Fincham started his career as Managing Director of the independent production company TalkBack, which he co-owned with Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. He presided over the growth of TalkBack from a small company making radio commercials to one of the UK’s leading indies. Programme credits include award-winning comedies such as The Day Today, I’m Alan Partridge, Brass Eye, Smack the Pony, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and many others; dramas such as Stephen Poliakoff’s acclaimed films for the BBC including Shooting the Past and The Lost Prince, and many factual series such as Channel 4’s Grand Designs and Jamie’s Kitchen, and BBC2’s The Apprentice.
In 2000 he sold TalkBack to Pearson TV, and later became the CEO of talkbackTHAMES, responsible for long-running series such as The Bill on ITV, as well as Pop Idol and subsequently The X Factor. In 2001, he won the Indie Award for the individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the independent sector of the industry.
He left talkbackTHAMES in 2005 and became Controller of BBC One where he oversaw the commissioning of such successes as How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Joseph: Any Dream Will Do, Jane Eyre, Robin Hood and many other new series. He was the driving force behind the restructuring of the early evening BBC One schedule around The One Show, and made the decision to bring Panorama back into peaktime and introduce an 8.00 mid-evening news bulletin. His success at BBC One was reflected by the fact that in 2007 the channel won all three ‘channel of the year’ awards – at the Broadcast Awards, from Televisual magazine, and at Edinburgh.
Peter resigned from the BBC in the wake of the Queen furore last October.
In February of this year it was announced that Peter had been appointed Director of Television at ITV and he took up this position in May.