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When Dawn Airey ran Channel 5, she famously described the channel’s core strengths as the three Fs: “films, football and fucking”.
The comment by the veteran television executive, who has just been appointed chair of Arts Council England (Ace), set the tone for a career defined by boldness and commercial instinct.
Airey will replace Nicholas Serota in August, with a fresh mandate to do more to support, nurture and protect the arts. Her appointment follows an independent review by the Labour peer Margaret Hodge, who warned that the arm’s-length public body must ensure funding is protected from politicisation and simplify its application process.
Airey has called her appointment “an honour” and said the importance of the council in championing art and culture had “never been more needed because the sector has never been more vital to our nation”. She also identified artificial intelligence as a key challenge.
She is familiar with navigating institutions under pressure. Over more than three decades, she has occupied some of the most senior roles in British broadcasting, often at moments of upheaval or reinvention.
She made her name in the 1990s as part of the founding team at Channel 5, before going on to head the channel and developing a reputation for decisive, business-savvy leadership and an instinct for popular programming.
After leaving Channel 5 in 2002, she went on to hold senior roles at Sky, where she oversaw channels and services, and at ITV, as managing director of global content. She then moved on to international and digital roles including as a senior vice-president for Yahoo! and chief executive of Getty Images.
Her non-executive and cultural leadership roles include chairing the National Youth Theatre and the Women’s Super League. She has also served as interim chair of Channel 4 and continues as deputy chair of its board.
“She’s a wonderful person. She’s the best thing that can happen to the arts in England,” said Ben Fenton, a veteran media consultant who worked with Airey at Channel 4 and at her independent production company Moon&Back. “She brings an incredibly fresh view, she’ll move slowly and break things that need to be broken.
“She’s not somebody who smashes things up for the sake of it; she thinks really hard about what will make something better, whether it’s women’s football, Channel 4, or Channel 5.”
Fenton said Airey’s extensive experience gave her “terrific perspective” on the world. “She may not be pure arts, but she’s of the arts. When I heard she was in for the job I was crossing every finger I have,” he added.
Peter Bazalgette, a former ITV chair and Ace chair from 2013 to 2017, described Airey as “clever, completely fearless, and fun to work with, because she is relentlessly upbeat”.
He said: “When you’re chair of Ace, you’re going to have a few ups and downs. There will be arguments about where the funding goes, whether too much is going to London, and there will be occasional causes célèbres. You need a steely constitution. She’s not the sort of person to let those occasional buffets get her down.”
Bazalgette said Airey’s background made her well-suited to a cultural sector increasingly viewed alongside the wider creative industries. “Dawn understands arts, media and sport,” he said. “And she’s been given, as far as we can see, quite a big agenda by Margaret Hodge.”
Born in Preston, Airey was a national judo champion as a schoolgirl before studying geography at Cambridge University and embarking on a career in television. By the age of 26, she had become a member of the otherwise all-male ITV network planners’ group. She has spoken candidly about working in what she described as a boys’ club culture. “I was subject to, honestly, stuff that today everybody would have been fired for,” she told Diva magazine.
At Channel 4, she acquired the nicknames “Scary Airey” and “Zulu Dawn” for her forthright manner, though she later insisted the reputation masked a softer personality. “The reality is I’m a bloody pussycat,” she said. “But I’m resilient and I’m a fighter. If you cross me or I see an injustice, I will just not put up with it.”
Former colleagues attest to her energy and work ethic and during the launch of Channel 5 she reportedly slept in the office. On one occasion she carried on working after falling down an escalator and badly grazing her leg. “She was a bundle of energy, a great motivator,” the former Channel 5 chief executive David Elstein once said. “Five was a cheerful place. She was a strong, positive force.”
In 2000, Airey fell in love with Jacquie Lawrence, a television producer, and the couple entered a civil partnership in 2007. They have two daughters.
“I’ve done a ridiculous amount of stuff. My career’s like a Salvador Dalí painting,” Airey said in 2024. “I have an amazing capacity for work. I have to be busy all the time.”
