"You don't realise how much relentless pressure you're under when you run a BBC channel," he said. "It's really long hours, a huge financial responsibility and creatively exhausting, as well as thinking about crisis management. "The thought of being director of a big indie is great, full-on in a creative way I won't have lots of the strategy issues I won't have to listen to MPs in the same way. Indies now own their programming rights, so the value of a programming idea can only be fully exploited at an indie. Other high-level BBC departures this year include head of comedy Sophie Clarke-Jervoise, who quit to join Tiger Aspect, which makes The Vicar of Dibley and Mr Bean and Mark Freeland, head of comedy commissioning, to join Hartswood Films, the company behind Men Behaving Badly and Coupling. Mr Murphy said a main factor in his decision to leave the BBC was the greater creative freedom offered by the independent sector.
TV Corp has also recruited Elaine Sperber, the BBC head of children's drama, and backed entertainment controller Jane Lush, who commissioned the hit series Strictly Come Dancing, to set up her own indie, Splash, with former BBC colleague Fenia Vardanis. Lorraine Heggessey, the former BBC1 controller, quit in February to join Talkback Thames, maker of I'm Alan Partridge and Da Ali G Show. The BBC sports chief Peter Salmon left in April for TV Corp, the production company behind the David Blunkett comic drama A Very Social Secretary. Improved terms of trade, giving indies the copyright to their shows for the first time, as well as increased opportunities to make programmes for the BBC, means that life has never been sweeter for the independent sector. But the BBC is going through a painful period of 7,000 job cuts, and senior staff are also under pressure to convince the Government of the case for charter renewal and an increased licence fee.
The BBC brain-drain appears to be gathering momentum, with Stuart Murphy, the controller of the digital channel BBC3, the latest in a long line of high-profile BBC figures to be poached by "indies". Mr Murphy has been appointed creative director at RDF Media, the " super-indie" behind shows such as Wife Swap, Faking It and Rock School. The strains of "crisis management" and "creative exhaustion" among high-flying BBC executives is driving them into the independent production sector, a senior corporation defector says. Known for opinions delivered with a degree of brutality, Mr French responded: "They're crap." He made the comment in a recent speech in Toronto and the gossipy world of advertising believes he is now on his way out. An advertising executive said: "It was immediately unclear whether he had been forced to resign or left on his own."The assertion from a man who says he is ever-conscious of his own "brand" did not go without response from female colleagues. She was on a plane with me and she looked like a pelican; we sat there and threw fish."Surely Joan can't be courting controversy?pandora independent.co.uk. A man who has allowed himself to be described as "the best advertising copywriter that ever lived" has offered to resign over a speech in which he described female colleagues as "crap". Nancy Vonk, co-chief creative officer at the WPP subsidiary Ogilvy in Toronto, said that while she felt "honoured" he counted her among his friends, her esteem had its limits.WPP are studying a transcript of his speech before deciding whether to accept Mr French's resignation..
