'Very sorry' Monty Don pays tribute to former BBC colleague who died of brain cancer
express.co.ukMonty Don has taken to Twitter to pay tribute to his former BBC colleague Jana Bennett, who died of brain cancer on January 11.
Jana, who was just 66 years old, was the first woman to be appointed as director of television at the Beeb, having overseen the corporation's entire output, including TV, interactive technology and online content.She also helped develop sub-channels for the BBC, including BBC Three, BBC Four, CBeebies and CBBC, and played a pivotal part in the launch of the broadcaster's iPlayer.
Having fronted several shows on the Beeb for well over two decades, it would seem inevitable that Monty and Jana would have shared some sort of working relationship during those years.
On Tuesday, the TV gardener paid tribute in his tweet, writing: "Very sorry to hear of the death of Jana Bennett. "I worked under her when I was at Tomorrow's World and she was then new Head of Science at the BBC."He continued: "It was not my finest hour and she went on to greater things but she was instantly impressive, friendly and I liked her a lot."Jana had joined the BBC back in 1979 when she worked as a news trainee and quickly worked her way up to become an editor on Newsnight by the age of 27.Her career continued to skyrocket when she accepted becoming the first female editor of BBC Two's science documentary Horizon in 1990 before taking on the first female head position at BBC Science four years later.Before learning of her cancer diagnosis in May 2019, Jana left her job as president of BBC Worldwide Networks and Global iPlayer to take up a new opportunity in the US, where she had been living on and off since the start of her career.She relocated to New York in 2013, where she helped launch the FYI network for A+E Networks before.
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