Dame Elizabeth Anne Lucy Forgan, DBE (born 31 August 1944) is an English journalist, and radio and television executive.

Early life

Forgan was educated at Benenden School,

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, and

St Hugh's College, Oxford St Hugh's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It is located on a site on St Margaret's Road, to the north of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Wordsworth as a ...

, then an all-female college. She initially worked on newspapers starting with the '' Teheran Journal'' as Arts Editor 1967–68, at the '' Hampstead and Highgate Express'' (1969–74), and on London's ''

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

'' (1974–78, and later as a columnist 1997–98). She was editor of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

's'' women's pages from 1978 to 1982, a ''Guardian'' columnist during 1997 and 1998, becoming a non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group from 1998.

Media management

Forgan was a founding

commissioning editor In book publishing, a commissioning editor is essentially a buyer. It is the job of the commissioning editor to advise the publishing house on which books to publish. Usually the actual decision of whether to contract a book is taken by a senior m ...

and then Director of Programmes at the UK's

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

from 1981 to 1990. She joined the BBC in 1993 to become Managing Director, BBC Network Radio where she developed the format for BBC Radio Five Live and launched the BBC's digital radio service. This used the already deemed obsolete DAB standard rather than the latterly adopted DAB+ technology as had originally been recommended by BBC engineers. She left the BBC in February 1996 over a disagreement with John Birt, then BBC Director General, over the decision to move BBC Radio News from

Broadcasting House London Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. T ...

to Television Centre. Forgan was appointed the sixth chairman of The Scott Trust in 2003, the owner of the Guardian newspapers.

Public organisations

Between 2001 and 2008 Forgan was the Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund. She is also board member of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, Trustee of the Royal Anniversary Trust, a former Board Member of the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

, a Trustee of the Media Trust and of the Phoenix Trust, and Chair of the Churches Conservation Trust. In February 2009 Forgan became Chair of

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...

, the first woman to head the British arts funding organisation. Appointed in the last year of a Labour Government, she was viewed with suspicion by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. In the October 2010 Government spending review, the Arts Council suffered a 29.6% funding cut, and was also ordered to halve its administrative costs.

Honours

Liz Forgan was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Radio Broadcasting in 2006 having previously been appointed OBE in 1998. In 2014 she was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy.

References

External links