Lorraine Heggessey

Lorraine Heggessey (born 16 November 1956) was the controller of BBC One. Along with the controller of drama commissioning, Jane Tranter, she brought Doctor Who back to BBC One in 2005. Prior to the 2003 commissioning of what became known as series 1, she engaged in a two-year fight to wrest control of the property from BBC Worldwide. BBC Worldwide had been hoping to make a movie based on the franchise. She later gave her opinions on the return of Doctor Who to Confidential in the episodes Bringing Back the Doctor and The Daleks.

She was responsible for a wide variety of other popular changes to the network's programming, including the addition of Strictly Come Dancing, Waking the Dead and Spooks. She left the BBC on 15 April (production)| 2005, just as Christopher Eccleston's series was first broadcast, to return to the production side of the television industry, whereupon she became one the only controller of BBC One,, to grant an interview to Doctor Who Magazine. (DWM 356) For the next five years she was the CEO of Talkback Thames, where she oversaw the production of popular shows like The IT Crowd (for which she received a BAFTA nomination), QI and Green Wing.