Jan Younghusband is a multi-award-winning and Academy award-winning producer, author, TV and film commissioner. She was Head of Arts and Music Commissioning at Channel 4 from 1999 -2009  (10 years) and Head of Music TV Commissioning at the BBC from 2009 – 2022 (13 years). At the BBC she was responsible for creating the music TV strategy and commissioning 300 hours of TV across all channels, including Royal and State Events.  Her work also included returning events: Glastonbury; The Proms; Later… with Jools Holland; BBC One Rocks New Year’s Eve; and Radio 1 Big Weekend on TV; and BBC One artists specials including: Adele; Michael Buble; Harry Styles and Paul McCartney.  Large scale charitable events included: One Love Manchester (Ariana Grande); Global Citizen’s Together at Home (in lockdown); Global Citizen Live (Sept 2021) and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Throughout her career she has been committed to creativity, innovation, diversity in all its forms, bringing new talent to the screen including Grayson Perry, Clara Amfo; Clive Myrie in classical; Kate Derham to the Proms; and the Kanneh Mason Family on TV  - delivering to a broad audience whist maintaining the integrity of the subject. Through her work she has taken music and arts to a broader audience through expert journalism and finding new ways to express culture on screen.  She is known for creating original ideas and refreshing returning formats - such as the first arts reality series “Operatunity” and redesigning the Proms for TV.

She is also known for supporting new directing talent, including commissioning debut feature films such as Hunger (Steve McQueen); The Arbor (Clio Barnard) ; Peter and the Wolf (Suzy Templeton’s Academy Award-winning animated film) and Sam Taylor Johnson. This included commissioning new operas on contemporary subjects as films for the screen.

She has over her career commissioned an award-winning slate of music feature documentaries not only for BBC Four Friday nights but also for cinema including George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese) Crossfire Hurricane (Brett Morgan) Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (Stanley Nelson). Leonard and Marianne: Words of Love (Nick Broomfield); Mystify: Michael Hutchence (Richard Lowenstein); The Stones and Brian Jones (Nick Broomfield); Paloma Faith: As I Am (Jane Mingay debut feature); Joan Armatrading: Me Myself (Poppy Edwards debut feature); Ibiza: the silent movie (Julien Temple); Crock of Gold Shane MacGowan (Julien Temple and Johnny Depp); The Bowie Trilogy (BBC:Francis Whateley); Glastonbury 50 Years and Counting (Francis Whateley); Glastonbury After Dark (Julien Temple); Achtung Baby: U2 (David Guggenheim); Exile on Main Street (John Battsek) and many more.

Now as an independent producer she is concentrating on passion projects for streamers and cinema currently producing a new feature doc for his 30th anniversary: Andrea Bocelli: Because I believe  directed by Cosima Spender for Entertainment One and Lionsgate; Exec-Producing global docs including ABBA: Against the Odds James Rogan’s new feature doc for global release and the BBC; and a further music feature film not yet announced directed by Kevin Macdonald  for global release by Mercury Studios.  She is also Visiting Professor of Music Business at Jesus College Oxford this year (2024). And on the Advisory Board of Royal Holloway College, London University.

Across her TV commissioning career and her own original production work, she is the most awarded arts commissioner in television with over 400 major international awards and over 4,000 commissions.

In Maggie Brown’s book about the history of Channel Four she says:

 ”Jan Younghusband has changed the face of arts and music broadcasting”.

Key Career Roles in order:

Assistant Production Manager – Glyndebourne

Production Manager, Nuffield Theatre, Southampton

Head of Planning, National Theatre, for Sir Peter Hall and Sir Richard Eyre (8 years)

Assistant to Peter Hall for The Ring in Bayreuth

General Manager for the Peter Hall Company, West End

Freelance TV and film producer and author (3 books).

Initial Film and Television: Producer and Music Consultant.

BBC Music : Producer 1991-1996

Producer of the first Week of Sport for Comic Relief (1993)

Head of Music and Arts TV Commissioning Channel 4 TV (10 years)

Which included, ballet, dance, and animation (1999-2009)

Head of Music and Events (TV Commissioning BBC Television (13 years)

Which included State and Royal Events (2009-2022)

Currently : Film and TV  producer, consultant, and author

Producer and Development Exec: Entertainment One, London

Development Exec: Daisybeck Productions, Leeds

Executive Producer/Development: Rogan Productions

Director of development: PJ Productions

Visiting Professor of Music Business at Jesus College, Oxford University

Member of the Advisory Board of Royal Holloway College, London University

Member of Arts Council Advisory Panel for opera and musical theatre.

Consultant with New Media Law

Jan trained in opera production at Glyndebourne and went on to be Head of Planning for Peter Hall and Richard Eyre at the National Theatre. After a brief stint as  General Manager of the Peter Hall Company in the West End and with the Really Useful, Jan moved to TV when she was invited to develop a new classical series for Initial Film and TV and Channel 4. Orchestra! (8x30) (Initial Film and TV) starring Dudley Moore and Sir Georg Solti was the first classical music series to reach a broader audience and was followed by Concerto which won an Emmy in 1993 for its innovation in the artform. Inventing new  formats has been a major part of Jan’s work including the first music and arts TV reality formats: Operatunity;  Musicality;  Ballet Changed my life;  and Big Art” for Channel Four. And Maestro at the Opera for the BBC. In 2009 she moved from Channel 4 to the BBC to head up Music TV Commissioning and created BBC Music which joined up all the music services across the BBC.  Jan also invented a music series to introduce young children to classical music: Oscar’s Orchestra starring Dudley Moore as a flying piano, 60 x 30mins for the BBC, global distribution, video release and now on Nickelodeon.

As an author Jan has written three books.  Orchestra! And Concerto! Published by Chatto and Windus (Random House) to accompany the TV series.  She ghosted the biography A Genius in the Family for the family of Jacqueline du Pre.  The book was converted to the feature film Hilary and Jackie, directed by Anand Tucker for Film 4.

General information:

Jan grew up in Portsmouth, went to Portsmouth High School and then on a music scholarship to Millfield.  She trained as a concert pianist but an accident to her hand at university changed the course of her career.  Her hobbies include running, walking, playing the piano, reading, watching films, gardening, ski-ing.  She also likes to drive, and holds a motorboat licence, and can be seen at weekends negotiating the Solent or steering a barge on the Thames.  She has a grown-up son Reggie Chelsom who is a cinematographer living in New York.  She has lived for parts of her life in Los Angeles and New York and splits her time now between New York and London. She speaks four languages: English, French, German and Italian.

Board Appointments:           

Swan Orchestra, Stratford

Itzy (Educational Trust)

Royal Holloway College, London University Advisory Board

Arts Council England Advisory Board

Youth Dance England (inaugural board member)

IMZ (Vice President)