Thursday 9 November 2017
Director of Sky Arts, Phil Edgar-Jones is to take up the position of Advisory Chair for the 2018 Edinburgh International Television Festival, it was announced today.
He will be joined by UKTV's Deputy Director of Commissioning Hilary Rosen, who will act as Deputy Advisory Chair. Edgar Jones will be responsible for selecting and chairing the advisory committee and curating the TV Festival which will run from Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th August 2018.
Executive Chair Graham Stuart, said:
Phil and Hilary are passionate ideas people and care deeply about the future of this industry. I'm looking forward to working with them to create an unmissable event.
Phil Edgar-Jones said:
There is always plenty to talk about in TV - what we make, who makes it, how we behave when we're making it, how we reflect our audiences and whether we're even still relevant. Our industry has never been more dynamic and challenging and I am looking forward to working with Hilary and getting together with colleagues to explore the present and the future in this year's festival - with a few glorious surprises along the way.
Hilary Rosen said:
The TV landscape is changing at such a fast pace that it's hard to catch your breath. This feels like a critical moment that will give us plenty to chew over next Summer. I'm delighted to be working with Phil to pull together the best possible line up for the festival.
Festival Director, Lisa Campbell, said:
I'm excited to be working with such a fantastic team who'll help bring starpower, creativity and purpose to our event so that every delegate comes away feeling they have really benefited from attending.
As a Festival and a charity, the Edinburgh International Television Festival is committed to helping young people from all backgrounds gain access to the TV industry. It runs two young talent schemes, Ones to Watch and The Network.
Both schemes aim to ensure that the people working in television are as diverse as the audience watching it.
Notes to Editors
Phil Edgar-Jones
Phil Edgar-Jones is responsible for driving the vision and strategy of the UK's only dedicated arts channels, broadcasting 48 hours of content a day across two channels. He joined Sky as Head of Entertainment in 2012 and was appointed the Director of Sky Arts in 2014.
He oversees all entertainment series in production across Sky's channels - Sky 1 HD, Sky Living HD, Sky Atlantic, HD, Sky Arts HD and Sky Movies, and it was in this role that he commissioned a wealth of successful programmes for Sky Arts including Portrait Artist of the Year, Talks Music and Parkinson's Masterclasses.
Before Sky, Edgar-Jones worked as Creative Director of Running Bare, where he exec produced Very Important People with Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, as well as a host of other projects with talent in the John Noel stable.
Prior to that, Edgar-Jones was Creative Director of Remarkable Pictures (part of Endemol UK) where he oversaw Big Brother and a number of entertainment projects including the first constructed reality show in the UK, The Salon, Space Cadets, Shattered and Seven Days on the Breadline.
Edgar-Jones' credits also include Ginger TV (Exec Producer, The Priory); Absolutely (exec Producing The Jack Docherty Show and working alongside writers such as Mitchell and Webb, Armstrong and Bain, Cecil and Riley); and before that on The Big Breakfast, The Word and The Sunday Show (where he first met Stuart Murphy). One of his first jobs was as a writer for a Sky 1 show called Barry's Joy Pad featuring a then unknown performer called David Walliams.
Hilary Rosen
Hilary Rosen is deputy director of Commissioning at UKTV, Britain's biggest multichannel broadcaster which has seen a five-fold increase in the number of UKTV Original Productions over the past five years. Hilary has commissioned and executive produced award-winning shows for the network, including the International Emmy and BAFTA nominee Taskmaster, John Bishop: In Conversation With..., Unspun with Matt Forde, The Davina Hour, Monty Python Live and Murder on The Blackpool Express.
Prior to joining UKTV Hilary was creative director at Silver River devising formats including The Town That Never Retired, BBC One and overseeing Inside Gatwick, Sky 1.
Her career has also encompassed ten years as a senior executive producer at Lion Television where credits include The Real Cherie, BBC One, Bad Behaviour, Channel 4, Mum's on Strike, ITV1, Ann Robinson's Travels With an Unfit Mother, BBC One and Going Straight, Channel 4. Hilary began her career with a decade in BBC News and Current Affairs, including stints on Panorama and Newsnight. Hilary has also acted as a consultant for BBC Academy, training the factual development teams and helping to launch idea portal iCreate.
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Plank PR / 020 8995 3936 / lou@plankpr.com/victoria@plankpr.com