…DECIDING WHAT TO WEAR

• Lorraine Heggessey said biggest challenge as BBC One boss was clothing
• She said deciding what to wear to be taken seriously was a real problem
• The 59-year-old was the first woman to run prime time television channel
• Commissioned Strictly Come Dancing, Spooks and re-launched Dr Who.

As one of the most influential women in television, you might have thought her time would be spent solving pressingly important dilemmas.
But Lorraine Heggessey has revealed that her biggest challenge while boss of BBC One was deciding what to wear and still be taken seriously.

The first woman to run the prime time channel, Miss Heggessey, 59, said women find it much harder to settle on a work outfit than men, because ‘the possibilities are endless’.
Giving the Royal Television Society’s Christmas speech on Wednesday, she also lifted the lid on her time working at some of the Corporation’s biggest shows. She claimed one of her editors at Newsnight was ‘a gambler and a heroin addict’ and that Panorama was such a ruthless place to work that it was nicknamed ‘Piranha Tank or Paranoia’.

During her time running BBC One from 2000 until 2005, Miss Heggessey commissioned hits including Strictly Come Dancing, Spooks, Waking the Dead and the re-launched Doctor Who.
But the mother of two said that rather than fretting over how to keep the nation entertained, she was more troubled by questions of what to wear, particularly to the many glitzy events she attended where should we have to be both glamorous and professional.

She said: ‘I’m often asked what was the biggest challenge when I was running BBC One? And actually it was what to wear. It’s a real problem if you’re a woman.
‘I mean if you’re a man and you’re going to a function you wear a dinner suit on a day out you maybe have to decide to wear a red tie or a blue tie but if you’re a woman the possibilities are endless.

Despite her reticence over making a fashion faux pas, she made life hard for herself by accepting every invitation she was offered during her tenure in charge.
She said: ‘As controller at the BBC I got invited to all sorts of events. I decided that I was going to take advantage of this and I was going to say yes to everything and I went to the royal box in Wimbledon to Buckingham Palace to Number 10 to all kinds of different sporting events’.

This took her to some particularly extravagant soirees, including Elton John’s White Tie and Tiara bash, at which she wore a £120,000 headpiece she was lent by Asprey, the exclusive London jewellers.

She admitted that she sometimes used her position to her advantage, once calling in the help of Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine while they were the stars of What Not To Wear on BBC One.

They persuaded her to invest in a dress exclusive designer Elspeth Gibson – which cost ‘a fortune’ – only for it to be ruined when her husband, composer Ron de Jong, spilled wine down it during an dinner event with 007’s Piers Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

However, not everything during her broadcasting career was so glamorous. She started off at Newsnight, which she said was ‘incredibly full of colourful characters’. None more so that a daily editor who was ‘reputed to be a gambler and a heroin addict and had to be paid in cash.’
She later moved to Panorama, where she said ‘most people were too grand to even talk to me for my first six months’. She explained the show was run on an ethos of ruthless competition and said: ‘The programme was known affectionately in Lime Grove as either Piranha Tank or Paranoia. The maxim that most producers went by was ‘it’s not enough to succeed those around you must fail’.