Fourteen months into his tenure as head of Sky Arts, Philip Edgar-Jones has found himself overseeing the channel’s most significant relaunch in a decade. But in doing so has landed himself the tricky task of arguing less is more.
From 9 June, when Sky Arts 2 closes, there will be a single Sky Arts “super channel,” accompanied by an on-demand website housing 1,000 hours of specialist programmes.
“I have argued for quite a long time we should have one Sky Arts channel, not two,” says the unpretentious Scot. “We are not dropping anything, that’s the beauty of it, we are repeating less.”
The sweetener is the new channel will be moved up the Sky programme guide to slot 121, in the middle of the third page, from page four and 129. Monthly reach is currently 7 million, but Edgar-Jones estimates that viewing could rise up to 30% after the change. Savings also mean a 10% content budget boost.
Other parts of Sky appear to be scaling back, with the recent Sky 3D channel closure and job cuts in Sky’s production staff, but Edgar-Jones says those changes have “no impact on us”.
“Sky Arts, it can’t stand still,” he says “We are very fidgety about it. That’s the arts, them genius people in the arts, they don’t want to stand still either,” he said. “We’d like more people to watch.”
The change is partly designed to create a more predictable weekly schedule including big events to attract a crowd.
In launch week, Stephen Mangan reprises his role in Birthday, a TV production of the Royal Court play by Joe Penhill, about a pregnant man about to give birth.
“It is very funny and guaranteed to create conversation amongst couples,” says Edgar-Jones. “It certainly did in my household.”
But there is edgier stuff, including a Sex Season in August with dance group BalletBoyz performing “a quite startling” Kama Sutra interpretation, drama documentary Erotic Adventures of Anais Nin set in 1930s Paris and Edith Bowman uncovering the Top Songs to have sex with.
It’s a far cry from repeats of Johnny Cash.
The weekdays will be regimented: Tuesdays, factual entertainment; Wednesdays, documentaries; Thursdays, drama and comedy under “Playhouse Presents” in themed clusters of four. The latter will include Marriage of Reason and Squalor, a twisted romance starring Rhys Ifans and Sophie Kennedy Clark from visual artist Jake Chapman.
Fridays showcase foreign drama series, as now. Weekends mean festivals and concerts – “dad rock”, says Edgar-Jones – and Dutch violinist and “King of Waltz” André Rieu, who he describes as “the gift that keeps on giving”.
But the biggest calling card is the promise of Hot Ticket night, on the first Monday of each month from July, featuring “a current, though not live, performance piece”.
The biggest booking is a screening of Pete Townshend’s classical orchestral revival of Quadrophenia at the Royal Albert Hall in July. “I am honestly so excited about it. Almost unbelievable,” Edgar-Jones says.
Other scheduled performances include Matthew Bourne’s revival of Car Man – a reinterpretation of Bizet’s Carmen – and Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel.
Hot tickets sounds similar to BBC director general Tony Hall’s promise a year ago of free front-row tickets to great arts events, which have been slow to materialise. “I haven’t seen any evidence of that yet,” Edgar-Jones chuckles.
It is all quite a leap from running Big Brother for a decade, but Edgar-Jones’ populist streak has endured.
In his previous role as head of Sky entertainment, he commissioned in 2012 Sky Arts’ successful 10-part series, Portrait Painter of the Year.
“Before that we didn’t have programmes people came back to time and again. You need that on a channel. We want a few more of those shows.”
He is adding a second talent strand, Guitar Star, which has had a thousand people applying to play classical, rock, folk and jazz.
“The guitar is Britain’s most popular instrument,” observes Edgar-Jones, who is a player himself. “What’s great about Guitar Star, one of the joys, is seeing people’s guitar faces as they are straining for the notes.”
The prize winner will perform at Suffolk’s Latitude Festival in July, broadcast on Sky Arts.
What qualifies Edgar-Jones to run Sky Arts? “I’m very experienced at television, I’ve worked in it since 1993, I’ve run big teams,” he says. He’s also managed talent, from Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin live on the Big Breakfast to reluctant star Jack Docherty’s five night a week Channel Five chat show.
After Channel 4 cancelled Big Brother, he left producer Endemol, went through “my year of hell”, but was then recruited by Sky. In March 2014 he replaced James Hunt, who had brought Melvyn Bragg and the prized South Bank Show to Sky Arts.
He might even have been assisted in his rise by BBC1’s decision to screen The Big Painting Challenge.
“They completely ripped us off … even the music was similar,” he says, followed by a chuckle. “We are all in the same game.”
“This one, genuinely, is my favourite job, without a shadow of a doubt, because actually in the arts we get – compared with entertainment – the most inspiring ideas, the most broad range of things I have ever seen, meet the most interesting people, see the best things.”
As for his tastes: “I like ballet, country music, folk music, rock music. I’m not a massive opera fan if I’m honest, it’s not my kind of singing. I like the visual arts. I dip my toe in. In television you are always a jack of all trades, master of none.”
“Our biggest challenge as an arts channel is to change people’s perceptions about what the arts can be. They think of arts as elitist, feel they are going to be given a lecture.
“But when we show people [in focus groups] what we have they go, ‘oh, that’s really rather good, what I like’.”
So would he like to drop the word arts? “Oh God, no! Absolutely not!”
Curriculum Vitae
Philip Edgar-Jones director Sky Arts
Age – 48
Married, one daughter, lives in north London.
Educated Royal High School Edinburgh and Queen Margaret College, communications studies.
1988-1991 – Magazine sub editor Sky, Woman’s Own, Hello, music journalist Sky magazine.
1991 – Presented Movie Watch, Channel 4 and Games World Live, Sky.
1993 – Assistant producer C4’s Big Breakfast and Absolutely, sketch show. Producer The Word
1997 – Producer Jack Docherty chat show for Channel Five.
2001-2010 – Endemol. Executive producer Big Brother, also The Salon, Shattered, Space Cadets, Art School.
2012 – Head of entertainment Sky.
2014 – Director Sky Arts.
