Will Wyatt (born 7 January 1942[1]) is a British media consultant and company director, formerly a journalist, television producer and senior executive at the BBC. His career began in 1964 as a trainee journalist on the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper, before moving to the BBC in 1965 as a sub-editor in BBC radio news. In 1968 he moved to BBC Television, working for the Presentation Department as producer of Points of View, The Fifties and Storyteller, before joining the daily arts and media programme Late Night Line-Up
He then originated and edited Edition, presented by Kenneth Alsop, The Book Programme with Robert Robinson and Don't Quote Me. He produced a number of documentaries including All the Buildings Fit to Print about Nikolaus Pevsner and was executive producer of They've Shot Kennedy, Good Night and Good Luck and The Scars of Autumn. He produced B.Traven: A Mystery Solved and wrote a real life literary detective story The Man Who Was B.Traven. (Cape, 1980)
By 1978 he had was Assistant Head of the Presentation Department, whose output included The Old Grey Whistle Test, The Hollywood Greats and Barry Norman's Film... programme. From 1981 to 1988 he was Head of Documentary Features, starting Forty Minutes, Crimewatch, Food and Drink and Around the World in Eighty Days with Michael Palin.
In 1988 he was made Assistant Managing Director of BBC Television, and in 1991 full Managing Director of BBC Network Television. He remained in that position for five years, before he became Chief Executive of BBC Broadcast in 1996, responsible for all BBC broadcasting in the UK on radio and television other than news. During this time he oversaw the launch of BBC Online, the creation of the BBC's partnership in UKTV and BBC America.
He was also deputy to the Director-General John Birt.
He retired from the BBC at the end of 1999, becoming chairman of the London Institute, leading it to become the University of the Arts London. He was awarded the CBE in 2000 and was President of the Royal television Society from 2000 to 2004. From 2002-7 he was Chairman of Human Capital Limited, a media strategy and research consultancy. His book wabout the BBC, The Fun Factory - A Life in the BBC was published by Aurum Press in 2003.
In 2007 he produced the Wyatt Report, an investigation into clips from A Year With the Queen being shown to journalists which apparently showed the Queen storming out of a session with American photographer Annie Leibovitz. The BBC subsequently admitted that the scenes used in the trailer had been edited out of sequence,[2] leading to the resignation of RDF's Chief Creative Officer Stephen Lambert, BBC One Controller Peter Fincham, and Fincham's Head of Publicity, Jane Fletcher, following the report's publication on October 5.[3]
Wyatt was a director of Coral Eurobet from 2001-3 and also served on the British Horseracing Board's commission into the conditions of stable and stud staff. He is currently chairman of Racecourse Media Group, the umbrella organisation for thirty racecourses, which operates the Racing UK television channel and manages their interest in the Turf TV service to betting shops, and a director of Vitec Group plc. He is also chairman of the Teaching Awards Trust and a trustee of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation.