IFTA has announced that Stuart Murphy, Director of Sky 1HD and Director of Commissioning for Sky Entertainment, will deliver the Irish Academy’s inaugural Annual Television Lecture. Stuart, who joined BSkyB in May 2009, is Director of Sky1HD and Director of Commissioning, Sky Entertainment. He also runs Sky2 and Pick TV. In February of this year he launched Sky Atlantic, a channel which screens US television programmes, including Martin Scorsese’ ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and HBO's 'Game of Thrones'. There is also a commitment from the channel to commission six UK programmes for the channel per year like Paul Abbott’s ‘Hit and Miss’.
Speaking about the event IFTA Chief Executive Áine Moriarty said “I am delighted to welcome Stuart Murphy to Ireland for the Irish Academy’s first annual Television Lecture. With Stuart set to share some of his extensive knowledge of the television industries both in the UK and Ireland, we hope IFTA Members will gain valuable insight into the industry and the commission processes at Sky from this unique IFTA learning event.”
Before joining BSkyB, Stuart was Creative Director at production house Indie TwoFour Productions where he was responsible for producing shows across a range of genres, including comedy and drama. In 2003, previous to TwoFour Production Stuart was made Controller of BBC3, commissioning many well loved comedies for the channel including ‘Little Britain’, ‘The Mighty Boosh’, ‘Gavin and Stacey’ and dramas like ‘Torchwood’, ‘Casanova’ and ‘Bodies’.
During Stuart’s time at BBC3, the channel won a mammoth six BAFTAs, five British Comedy Awards, 15 RTS’s and five Rose d’Or awards. In 2005 BBC3 won Broadcast Digital Channel of the Year, Best Entertainment Channel and MGEITF’s non-terrestrial Channel of the Year.
The IFTA TV Lecture, which is to become an annual event for the Irish Film & Television Academy, is to be held in Dublin, on Sunday 4th December 2011. The event is FREE and exclusive to IFTA Members and is supported by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI).
For information about joining IFTA and this event visit www.ifta.ie or visit the Academy's Facebook page www.facebook.com/iftaonline
