Comic Industry in Top 100 Media List
The Guardian has published its annual list of the 100 most powerful people in the media. Amongst those in the list include Blackadder creator Richard Curtis, stand-up comedian Russell Brand, ITV double-act Ant and Dec, former I'm Alan Partridge producer and current head of BBC One Peter Fincham, and ITV's head of entertainment and comedy Paul Jackson.
Fincham, who reached 12th on the list, has been responsible for trying to improve BBC One's output. Whilst this has included shows like Life on Mars and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, he has also brought new comedy to the channel - such as Jam and Jerusalem with Dawn French, After You've Gone with Nicholas Lyndhurst and Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse.
Jackson, who came 52nd, has recently tried to increase comedy output on ITV1. This has included new shows such as Benidorm and News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald, although other shows commissioned by him such as Tough Gig and Get a Grip have proved less successful. Another achievement by Jackson was securing Ant and Dec for ITV until 2009; the deal being worth £30million. Ant and Dec themselves came joint 65th on the list.
One place above Ant and Dec was Richard Curtis. Other than Blackadder, Curtis also wrote The Vicar of Dibley, and has also worked on Mr Bean, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image and co-founded Comic Relief. Last May, Curtis was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship award.
Also on the list as a new entry was Russell Brand (75th). Brand has a wide following, but has sometimes caused controversy in the past, famously dressing up as Osama Bin Laden on MTV the day after 9/11. His E4 shows such as Russell Brand's Got Issues and Channel 4 programme The Russell Bran Show attracted few viewers, but it is mainly as a stand-up and as being former host of Big Brother's Big Mouth for which he is most well known and respected.
The top five people on the list were Eric Schmidt, the executive of Google, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC, Michael Grade, chief executive of ITV, and James Murdoch, chief executive of BSkyB, and son of Rupert Murdoch.
The full list can be viewed on MediaGuardian