Sky-high adventure for North East arts

Nov 23 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

The revolution will be televised in 3D, it will deliver the arts to the people and it will be led by a Northumbrian. Andrew Mernin meets BSkyB’s chief executive Jeremy Darroch to find out more.

BROADCASTING giant Sky wants to do to the arts what it has done to football. Cue soccer commentator Andy Gray screaming into his mic to celebrate an “unbelievable” pirouette at the Royal Opera House.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, Richard Keys and Jamie Redknapp pick over the bones of playwright Alan Bennett’s latest offering. “At the end of the day, the boy’s done good, to be fair,” says Jamie.

In fact, what Jeremy Darroch intends to do is use heavy investment and better programming to bring the arts to the masses.

“Our ambition in art is really no less than in sport,” says the Northumbrian from the darkened grandeur of Durham Castle on a cold November evening.

When Sky first got its hands on football in the early nineties, Ryan Giggs was a teenager, Cantona reigned as king and Alan Shearer had a full head of hair.

The Premier League had just been born and the national game was light years away from the billionaire’s playground it is today.

During the years since, the English top-flight has become the one of the most-watched sporting brands on the planet, as Sky has invested £10bn in the game.

“The Premier League has never been in better shape and we are starting to see more clubs challenge the top four, so the outlook is pretty good,” says Darroch.

“We want to focus on the big games and on points of interest, but we will also have a broad coverage of all the teams.”

The Alnwick-born Newcastle fan smiles as he reminds himself of the fact that Sky also has its fair share of Championship games in its stable.

Of course the transformation of English football is not purely down to Sky’s billions, but its broadcast money has helped to oil the wheels of progress towards a glamorous game awash with cash.

And now the company wants to give the arts the same lavish treatment as the beautiful game.

Darroch has returned to his native North East to celebrate Sky’s latest foray into the arts world, the Lumiere light festival in Durham.

The company worked in partnership with live events group Artichoke by funding and televising the celebration of Durham’s ancient and modern assets through an artistic lightshow.

It follows its work with Artichoke on Antony Gormley’s One & Other event, which saw Sky Arts stage the world’s longest continuous high-definition outside broadcast by streaming footage of the ‘fourth plinth’ live for 2,400 hours.

“If we see an area that’s under-served, we will try and step into that. A lot of people have an interest in art and I want to make the arts generally more accessible to people.

“If you are going to build a business in the long term, you’ve got to constantly redefine your frontiers.”

Darroch’s Sky career began in finance five years ago, but it wasn’t until December 2007 that he got the nod from the Murdoch family to jump from chief financial director into the hot-seat.

He assumed the role when Rupert Murdoch’s son James moved on to the helm of his father’s News Corporation, which has a controlling minority stake in Sky.

The move saw him become the first internal candidate to get the top job in the satellite broadcaster’s 19-year history.

Most people who had just been given a promotion into a role which is reportedly worth around £2m a year, would probably have cause for celebration.

But Darroch, a family man with a working- class grounding, had other priorities and immediately after being told of his promotion had to rush off to a recital by his eight-year-old daughter, as he digested the news.

“It was a reminder that if you are going to be successful, you’ve also got to balance your business and family and stay attuned to those things.”

Today Darroch says he has enjoyed a good working relationship with billionaire media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his son,

“I know both Rupert and James extremely well because I’ve worked with both of them. I’ve got huge admiration of News Corporation as a business.

“It is a definition of a business that invests in the long-term. What they have created is second to none and they’ve been a big supporter of Sky.

“They almost broke their own company launching Sky and they’ve never sold a share since.”