Jason Deans 

30 most powerful women in British TV and radio named by Radio Times

Presenters and executives, including Mary Berry and Kirsty Wark, among on- and off-screen talent on list drawn up by panel
  
  

Mary Berry
Great British Bake Off presenter Mary Berry is on the Radio Times list of the 30 most powerful women in British TV and radio. Photograph: Harlem Mepham/GC Images Photograph: Harlem Mepham/GC Images

Broadchurch star Olivia Colman, Great British Bake Off judge Mary Berry and Newsnight host Kirsty Wark have been named among the 30 most powerful women in British TV and radio, in a list drawn up by the Radio Times.

Also featured are presenter Clare Balding, and comedians Miranda Hart and Victoria Wood.

The list is split between on and off-screen talent, including Sherlock producer Sue Vertue, the writer of Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright, and Elisabeth Murdoch, founder of MasterChef producer Shine.

Alison Graham, Radio Times television editor, who chaired the panel that drew up the list, said for too long a woman's place on TV had routinely been as victims in crime dramas, but things were improving.

"A revolution has been rumbling quietly in the background and it's now reached the foreground as clever, talented and formidable women prove that our gender provides much more than disposable props," Graham added.

She singled out Claudia Winkleman, who will co-host Strictly Come Dancing this autumn with Tess Daly after Bruce Forsyth left the show. "Yes, two women hosting one of the biggest shows on television, all by themselves! The fact that this is such a big deal in 2014 shows just how pitifully slowly television has reacted to the seismic changes in wider society."

The list was drawn up by Graham, Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray, Bafta chief executive Amanda Berry, Comic Relief co-founder Emma Freud, producer/quizmaster Richard Osman, and Victoria Brooks, founder and director of Milk Publicity.

Other actors on the list include Sheridan Smith, soon to be seen playing Cilla Black in an ITV biopic, and Sarah Lancashire, who has featured in BBC1 dramas Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley.

Woods' As Seen On TV and Dinnerladies collaborators Julie Walters and Anne Reid make the list. Reid recently starred with Derek Jacobi in Last Tango in Halifax.

TV executives on the list include BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore, her BBC2 counterpart Kim Shillinglaw, and Channel 4 chief creative officer Jay Hunt. From radio there is Helen Boaden, director of the BBC's national stations.

Radio Times's list also features Nicola Shindler, the producer of Last Tango in Halifax and Happy Valley.

Other names from TV production include Beryl Vertue, mother of Sue, who has credits ranging from Steptoe and Son to Men Behaving Badly and Sherlock.

Writers on the list include Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas and Abi Morgan, who has credits including The Hour and Birdsong.

The comedian and writer Dawn French is also on the list, with actor Joanna Lumley, presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Mary Beard, and comedian Sarah Millican.

The top 30 is completed by Anne Mensah, Sky's head of drama, State of Play producer Hilary Bevan Jones and Pippa Harris, executive producer of BBC2's Shakespeare adaptations The Hollow Crown.

 

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