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Peter Fincham
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Peter Fincham (born 26 July, 1956) is a British television producer and executive, currently the Director of Television for the ITV network. He was also formerly the Controller of BBC One, the primary television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation, until his resignation on October 5 2007, following criticism over the handling of the A Year with the Queen debacle.
ated at Tonbridge School, Fincham studied music at Churchill College, Cambridge.
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Peter Fincham (born 26 July, 1956) is a British television producer and executive, currently the Director of Television for the ITV network. He was also formerly the Controller of BBC One, the primary television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation, until his resignation on October 5 2007, following criticism over the handling of the A Year with the Queen debacle.
Biography
Educated at Tonbridge School, Fincham studied music at Churchill College, Cambridge. He joined the Cambridge Footlights production team as musical director, alongside a committee which included Griff Rhys Jones, Jimmy Mulville, Rory McGrath and Clive Anderson. After leaving Footlights, Fincham composed songs, none of which were picked up for recording, and then worked on the touring version of Godspell. During a period of increasingly common unemployment, Fincham was walking on Wandsworth Common in the rain and thinking to himself: "Oh my God. What have I done? I have made the wrong decision?"
Early career
Fincham applied for a job at the BBC in 1984, a position as a researcher on The Late, Late Breakfast Show that had recently been vacated by his friend Helen Fielding — later author of the Bridget Jones novels — when she left to concentrate on her writing career. However, Fincham was unsuccessful in this application.
TalkBack
In 1985 he joined the staff of the independent production company TalkBack Productions as a producer. At the time the company, which was founded by comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, produced radio programming, television advertisements and corporate videos. Fincham became the company's Managing Director in 1986, and in 1989 oversaw the move of TalkBack into fully-fledged television production when it produced its founders' sketch show, Smith and Jones, for BBC One.
TalkBack became particularly well-known for its comedy output, which included such shows as The Day Today (BBC Two, 1994), Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (BBC Two, 1994), Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC Two, 1996–present), I'm Alan Partridge (BBC Two, 1997 and 2002), Smack the Pony (Channel 4, 1999–2003) and Da Ali G Show (Channel 4, 2000). Fincham served as executive producer on many of these programmes. He also helped to establish TalkBack as a noted producer in other genres, with the company moving into drama with Stephen Poliakoff's Shooting the Past (BBC Two) in 1999. In 2001, Fincham was given an Indie Award for outstanding contribution to the independent production sector.
Also in 2001 TalkBack was sold to FremantleMedia in a £62 million deal, which made Fincham personally a multi-millionaire. Fremantle merged TalkBack with another of its acquisitions, Thames Television, to form the new Talkback Thames production company, of which Fincham became the Chief Executive in February 2003. He remained in this position until he left at the beginning of 2005, after twenty years at TalkBack and its successor company, claiming he wanted "a new challenge and a new adventure." BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey's appointment to his old post opened up the vacancy at BBC One, which he in turn applied for and won despite being rich enough never to have to work again.
BBC One
Fincham was regarded in some quarters as a surprising choice as Controller, as prior to his appointment he had never worked for either the BBC or any other broadcaster, having spent his career in the independent production sector. In 2006, The Guardian newspaper reported that at BBC One Fincham was ultimately responsible for an annual programming budget of £873 million.
Fincham oversaw the commissioning of successful BBC One programmes such as Robin Hood (2006–present), Jane Eyre (2006) and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? (2006). His first full year in charge saw a year-on-year growth in the channel's audience share, with BBC One earning a 23.6% share in August 2006, compared to 22.2% in the same month in 2005.
Fincham directly initiated the creation of both the early evening current affairs and lifestyle programme The One Show (2006–present) and the prime time chat show Davina (2006), the latter designed as a vehicle for presenter Davina McCall. However, Davina was a critical and ratings disaster, which Fincham subsequently admitted was personally his fault, although he defended the strategy of experimenting with the BBC One schedule. He made another notable change to the schedule in January 2007, when he moved the current affairs series Panorama back from Sunday nights to the prime time Monday evening slot it had been removed from in 2000, although this decision was at least partly in response to a demand from the Board of Governors of the BBC for the channel to show more current affairs programming in prime time.
It was also Fincham's decision to scrap the BBC One "Rhythm and Movement" idents, which had been used to provide the channel with its on-screen identity between programmes since they were introduced by Heggessey in 2002. They were replaced by a new set of idents, known as the "Circle idents", in the autumn of 2006; however, Fincham again found himself criticised, this time by The Daily Telegraph newspaper, for the decision to spend £1.2 million on the set of eight ten-second films, some of which were shot in Mexico and Croatia. Fincham also found himself having to publicly defend the £18 million salary the BBC awarded presenter Jonathan Ross in 2006, although Ross's BBC One work — which primarily consisted of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Film... and various one-off events — formed only part of his BBC commitment, which also encompassed programmes for BBC Three and BBC Radio 2.
In May 2007, Fincham took the decision to drop the Australian soap opera Neighbours from BBC One after twenty-one years on the channel, when its producers increased the price they wanted the BBC to pay for it in a bidding war. Fincham commented that: "We'd love to have kept it but not at any price."
Fincham was involved in a further controversy in July 2007, when introducing a press conference to publicise BBC One's forthcoming autumn season programming for later in the year. The season launch tape shown to journalists included a trailer from the documentary A Year with the Queen. It apparently showed the Queen storming out of a session with American photographer Annie Leibovitz over a disagreement about what she should wear, but the BBC subsequently admitted that one of the shots used in the trailer had been edited out of order. Fincham admitted the error, and initially rejected calls that he should resign from his position as a result. However, the publication of the Wyatt Report on October 5th led to his resignation. See RDF Media#Queengate Affair.
ITV
On February 28 2008, it was announced that the ITV network, the BBC's main rival, had hired Fincham to be their new Director of Television. At the Edinburgh Television Festival in August 2008, Fincham claimed that broadcasters such as ITV were under too much pressure from industry regulator OfCom to produce programmes that were only of a minority interest, as opposed to pure entertainment programmes for a mainstream audience.
Boxing
Fincham is known for his dislike of boxing. In 2007, leading promoter Frank Warren alleged Fincham barred the professional sport from being aired on the BBC after he rejected a deal to screen the former Olympic star Amir Khan's future fights.
Fincham's stance on boxing drew criticism from several Members of Parliament. Ian Stewart, Labour MP for Eccles, and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on boxing, said in a letter to him: "We believe the BBC, as a public funded body, should be making some coverage of this major sport available to the viewing public."
Mr Warren insisted that he had reached an agreement with the BBC head of sport, Roger Mosey, to show Khan's fights but this was overruled by Mr Fincham, who termed boxing "a dangerous sport".
Within weeks of Fincham leaving the BBC, the corporation secured delayed broadcast rights to major fights involving Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe.
Shortly after Fincham took over at ITV, boxing was axed from the channel's schedule. However, in October 2008, the network announced that it had signed a deal with promoter Mick Hennessy and a big fight involving Carl Froch will be shown on ITV1 in December 2008. However, all other fights will now be shown on ITV4.
Personal life
Married to Clare, who runs a charity, the couple have four children: Arthur, Leo, Fleur and Holly. The family live in London, and have weekend retreat in Walberswick, Suffolk - the same village as Richard Curtis. Fincham is know for his efficiency and nose for detail in business, but also his easy-going style of dress, with open-collared shirts worn under his suits. Musically he enjoys Bob Dylan and Neil Young.
Outside of broadcasting, Fincham co-edited The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book with author Douglas Adams in 1986.
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