Dame Jennifer Gita Abramsky,
DBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 7 October 1946) is chairman of the UK's
National Heritage Memorial FundThe National Heritage Memorial Fund is a non-departmental public body set up under the National Heritage Act 1980 in memory of people who gave their lives for the United Kingdom....
(NHMF). The NHMF makes grants to preserve heritage of outstanding national importance. Until her retirement from the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Jenny Abramsky was its most senior woman employee; she was Director of Audio and Music. She is the daughter of Professor
Chimen AbramskyChimen Abramsky was emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at University College London. His first name is pronounced Shimon....
and the granddaughter of Rabbi
Yehezkel AbramskyYehezkel Abramsky , also affectionately referred to as 'Reb Chatzkel Abramsky', was a prominent and influential Orthodox rabbi and scholar, born and raised in Russia who later headed the London Beth Din for 17 years....
. She was educated at
Holland Park SchoolHolland Park School was opened in London, UK, in 1958. It became the flagship for comprehensive education, and in its heyday had over 2000 in the student body. It became known as the "socialist Eton", and a number of high-profile socialists sent their children to Holland Park School, adding to its...
in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and the
University of East AngliaThe University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...
, where she read
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
.
Career
In 1969, Abramsky joined the BBC as a programmes operations assistant, and in 1973 was appointed as a producer of
The World at OneThe World at One, or WATO for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, which is broadcast from 1pm to 1:30pm from Monday to Friday. The programme describes itself as "Britain's leading political programme. With a reputation for rigorous and original...
. She became the first woman editor of the agenda-setting
TodayToday is BBC Radio 4's long-running early morning news and current affairs programme, now broadcast from 6.00 am to 9.00 am Monday to Friday, and 7.00 am to 9.00 am on Saturdays. It is also the most popular programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks...
programme, ran the first Gulf War Radio 4 News FM service, and went on to launch Britain's first continuous news and sport radio station, Five Live, before launching the television channel
BBC News 24BBC News is the BBC's 24-hour rolling news television network in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...
. She also launched the BBC's online news website, news.bbc.co.uk which became one of the world's most highly accessed websites.
Abramsky became Director of
BBC RadioBBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
in January 1999 and was subsequently promoted to the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Executive Board with over all responsibility for BBC Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, and Five Live; as well as the BBC digital radio stations 1Xtra, 6 Music, BBC 7, Five Live Sports Extra and the Asian Network; the three BBC orchestras based in England; and the Proms. In 2006 she became Director of Audio and Music – adding online services, audio on demand and
podcastA podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing to her remit of broadcast radio. She had an annual programming budget of £236 million (about US $475m) and a staff of 1,681.
Under her leadership, by the first three months of 2007 the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's radio stations had an audience share of 56.6 percent – compared with the 13.9 percent of listeners shared by all commercial radio broadcasters – and a reach of almost 33.5 million people – a record, according to
GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper (9 July 2007). The paper listed Abramsky as the 18th most powerful person in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's media, though she had slipped from No. 11 in the paper's 2006 ranking.
It was announced in June 2008 that Jenny Abramsky was retiring from the BBC after 39 years of service, to be replaced by
Tim DavieTim Davie is the BBC's Director of Audio and Music. He joined the BBC in April 2005.In his current role, he sits on the BBC's Executive Board with overall responsibility for all of the BBC's national radio networks and the corporation's music output across all media...
.
Jenny also currently serves on the board of trustees for the UK's largest youth drama festival, the
Shakespeare Schools FestivalThe Shakespeare Schools Festival charity is the UK’s largest youth drama festival, enabling four schools a night to perform a half hour abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays in local, professional theatres all over the United Kingdom...
and is a Fellow of The
Radio AcademyThe Radio Academy is a registered charity that is dedicated to 'the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production'....
.
Personal life
She is married to
Alasdair LiddellAlasdair Liddell was one of the architects of Britain's health strategy in the 1990s. As Director of Planning at the Department of Health he led the process of setting national priorities for the National Health Service...
, former head of planning for the
NHSThe National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
, who quit to go into private business. Their son is a director and producer of science programmes, and their daughter is a producer for
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
.
Already a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Abramsky was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.
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