Michael Richard Jackson (born 11 February 1958) is a British television producer and executive. He is known for being one of only three people to have been Controller of both BBC1 and BBC2, the main television channels of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and for being the first media studies graduate to reach a senior level in the British media. In 2018, he co-founded Two Cities TV, with Wall to Wall Media founder and ex-CEO Alex Graham.
Early life and career
Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, Jackson was the son of Ernest Jackson, a baker, and his wife Margaret.
Immediately after graduating, Jackson became the organiser of "The Channel Four Group", having written his final year dissertation at college on the prospect of a fourth national television channel in Britain. The Media Show was described by Waldemar Januszczak in The Guardian newspaper in 1997 as "one of the defining television programmes of the 1980s... In Michael Jackson, its first producer, it gave us a media-genius."
Despite his success in the independent sector however, in 1988 Jackson was persuaded by Alan Yentob, the then Controller of BBC Two, to join the staff of the BBC. Appleyard pointed out that: "the investment financial, intellectual and egotistical in the programme is enormous... Yentob is determined to put his own cultural stamp on BBC2 and Jackson has everything to prove."
Jackson remained as editor of The Late Show for the next two years, until in 1991 he was promoted to become BBC television's Head of Music and Arts. At the age of thirty-three, he was the youngest Head of department in the history of the BBC. Jackson's time at BBC 2 was generally seen as a great success — he was described by The Guardian in 1996 as "one of the best controllers BBC2 has ever had." During his time in charge of the channel it increased its average audience share from 10% to 11%, Its £7 million budget was a record for BBC 2, and many accolades at the British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), Royal Television Society Awards and others. Other drama successes came with This Life (1996–97) and the American import The X-Files (1994–96; its ratings success on BBC 2 saw it transferred to BBC 1). and the comedies The Day Today (1994), Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994) and The Fast Show (1994–2000). However, he also took the decision to cancel The Late Show, the series he himself had initiated, in 1995. "I think it simply boils down to Michael not wanting to spend that much money that late," was how one "insider" described the decision to The Sunday Times newspaper.
Jackson's next move came somewhat unexpectedly in the summer of 1996, when the Director-General of the BBC, John Birt, unveiled a series of major — and controversial — changes to the structure of the corporation. The administration of the BBC was to be split into two main divisions; BBC Broadcast, responsible for the commissioning of programmes and the running of the channels, and BBC Production, responsible for producing in-house programme content. Some of these changes were made very suddenly — Alan Yentob was informed that he was to be moved on from his post as Controller of BBC 1, and allegedly given just forty-eight hours to decide whether he wanted to run BBC Broadcast as Director of Television or BBC Production as Director of Programmes. In his place, Jackson was promoted to a dual role as both Controller of BBC 1 and Director of Television, responsible overall for all BBC television broadcasting as well as the implementation of planned future services on the new digital television platforms. The Guardian suggested, in reference to Jackson's replacement of Yentob at BBC 1, that "in the end Yentob was eclipsed by his protege." Channel 4's coverage of the sport went on to win a British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) for Best Sports Coverage in 2000.
The channel's comedy output enjoyed particular success under Jackson's aegis, with the sitcoms Spaced (1999–2001) and Black Books (2000–04), sketch show Smack the Pony (1999–2003) and the more generally comic Da Ali G Show (2000) and So Graham Norton (1998–2002) all proving to be popular successes.
Jackson is often cited as the reason for the channel's once flagship soap opera Brookside being removed from primetime in 2002 before finally being axed in 2003 after 21 years, so much so that the main antagonist in the soap's final few episodes was named Jack Michaelson, a drug dealer who was hated by the residents of the Close and eventually hanged from a bedroom window in the final episode.
In drama, Jackson was at times criticised for relying more on US imports than home-grown material, with Ally McBeal, The West Wing and Sex and the City all arriving at the broadcaster during his time there. Home-grown drama successes were rarer, as he himself admitted in a 2001 interview with The Guardian. He did, however, point to significant British drama successes with Queer as Folk (1999–2000) and Teachers (2001–04), describing the former as one of the "signature shows" of his time at the channel. Channel 4 had participated in feature film production ever since its launch in 1982, backing successful films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), but FilmFour Limited was an attempt to set up a full-blown rival to Hollywood studio productions. but on 23 July that year Jackson shocked many in the British television industry when he announced that he had decided to leave the channel to work for Barry Diller's USA Entertainment company. and in this role he commissioned the successful drama series Monk (2002–2009) and The Dead Zone (2002–2007) and Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009) In January 2006, he was made President of Programming of Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp internet business responsible for developing and acquiring content-based web businesses. While at IAC he acquired majority control of Connected Ventures, comprising Collegehumor.com and Vimeo.com for a reported $25M. In 2021 Vimeo was spun out of IAC with a market capitalisation of $8B.
Since his move to the US, Jackson has been linked at various times with a return to a senior media position in the United Kingdom. In 2006, he was offered the role of CEO of ITV as a part of a proposed merger between the NTL cable company (now Virgin Media) and ITV plc, however BSkyB effectively blocked the merger by controversially buying a 17.9% stake in ITV plc.
Independent producer and board member
Since 2010, Jackson has been an active producer while also sitting on a number of boards.
He has executive produced factual programmes including Arena: Flames of Passion (BBC, 2007, 1x90m) about the under-appreciated parts of British cinema; The Genius of Photography (BBC, 2007, 6x1hr), the first television history of photography; America: The Story of US (The History Channel, 2011, 9x1hr); Civilisations (BBC, 2018, 9x1hr); and Creativity [Working Title] (BBC, 2022, 6x1hr).
Board positions during his career have included EMI Group plc (1999–2002); Nutopia (2008–2016); Scottish Television plc (2009–2018); DIC Entertainment 2006–2009), Peters Fraser and Dunlop 2015–2020). He was chairman of the leading UK photography non-profit The Photographers Gallery between 1998 and 2001.
Two Cities Television Ltd
In 2018, Jackson was executive producer on his first drama series – Patrick Melrose, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Sky Atlantic/Showtime, 2018, 5x1hr). The series was nominated for four Emmy awards including Best Drama Series and won four BAFTAs including Best Mini-series. Patrick Melrose was produced by Two Cities TV, Sunnymarch, Rachael Horovitz' company West Fourth Films, and Little Island.
Two Cities TV was founded in 2018 by Jackson, Stephen Wright and Alex Graham with funding from BBC Studios, based in Belfast, London, and New York. In 2020, Scottish Television became Two Cities' backer and Graham left the company. Also in 2020, Two Cities was commissioned by BBC One to make the Belfast-based police drama Blue Lights.
Jackson is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society (1997) and holds an Honorary DLitt from the University of Westminster (1995).