Elaine Bedell the Southbank Centre CEO on Success – and Failure

15 minutes with... Elaine Bedell Leading lady Elaine Bedell powered The Southbank Centre CEO on through the ranks at the BBC and ITV, commissioning and success – and failure – in TV, and how producing popular hit shows including Strictly Come Dancing, The gender inequality persists in the media X Factor and Top Gear. Having run her own production company and set up the commercial On… making the arts accessible covering Bill Clinton’s first early and write for hours. A coach arm of the Royal Shakespeare Company, I don’t have a privileged election. As executive producer, once said to me that the best thing she’s now CEO of background. I was born in East I’d be in the studio gallery with you can do in life is find things Southbank Centre, London, and every few years we my sleeves rolled up. As managing that occupy you so much that Europe’s largest arts moved house further down the director, I’d be thinking about you don’t notice time passing. centre. She’s the first central line until we ended up in the bottom line and wondering female boss in its 66-year history. Essex. My family always valued if I could afford to provide free On… leadership art and culture – but we accessed biscuits. Even though TV is I try to be visible and accessible. it for free. We went to the library adrenaline-fuelled and everything We have all-staff meetings every every Friday and my mum would has to be done by yesterday, I tried quarter and I run a weekly read to us each night. My father, to create a fun culture and a sense employee surgery. My biggest who left school at 14, was an of camaraderie. Most of the staff worry is money: only 37 per cent electronics engineer and a gifted who joined Watchmaker in the of our funding comes from Arts piano player: our biggest piece of early days were still there eight Council England, the rest is from furniture was a baby grand. I had years later when it was bought by ticket sales, donations, commercial free piano lessons at my state the Chrysalis Group. partnerships and sponsorships. school and my father would take My aim is to preserve this precious us to recitals at Royal Festival On… failure institution and make sure it’s in Hall. I’m absolutely committed to My most catastrophic failure was robust health when I pass it on. making sure Southbank Centre, an ITV game show with Simon which used to be referred to as Cowell called Red or Black? Hosted On… gender equality ‘the People’s Palace’, is open and by Ant and Dec, contestants could It’s ridiculous that I’m the first inclusive. Up to 40 per cent of our win £1m on the spin of a wheel. female CEO at Southbank Centre. events here are free. It was one of the most expensive I joke that they must have run out game shows in British TV history of men to ask. ITV didn’t have On… her big break – and it tanked. We only made two a female boss until 2018 – and While studying English at Leeds series. Audiences wanted to feel the BBC has never had a female University, the BBC Education contestants had earned the money, director-general. There’s no Department ran a competition not won it out of luck. Our egos question men have been hiring in to find the best student-produced took a battering. You have to dust their own image. But it’s not just radio documentary. My friend and yourself off, learn and move on. bias that’s holding women back at I won. The prize: a three-week work: it’s babies. Childbirth takes crash-course in production. That’s On… her debut novel months or years out of careers. how I got my foot in the door. In between leaving ITV and Meanwhile, men in equivalent joining Southbank Centre, I had positions power ahead. I took my On… starting her own business six months of gardening leave, so second child, Florence, into work In my mid-thirties, I set up I decided to write a semi-detective with me when she was two weeks’ a production company called novel [About That Night]. I’d come old and she slept in a Moses basket Watchmaker, working on shows from a very noisy industry full of under my desk. I could do that such as BBC One’s New Year’s Eve extroverts and suddenly I was because it was my company – most shows with Clive James and trapped in my own head. I’d get up women don’t have that option. Cannon Richard Portrait: Bassett. Kate Interview: 12.

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