Kevin Lygo is ITV’s Managing Director, Media and Entertainment, overseeing a content budget of circa £1 billion, and heading up all content commissioning across genres and ITV platforms. Lygo became ITV’s Director of Television in 2016.

Commissions during Lygo’s tenure include some of the biggest and most-talked about shows on British television during this period, including Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, The Masked Singer, The Real Full Monty, The 1% Club, Harry’s Heroes, Gino, Gordon and Fred, Liar, Des, Quiz, Manhunt and The Bay, as well as Emmy award-winning current affairs including Exposure films, Undercover: Inside China’s Digital Gulag, and White Right: Meeting The Enemy.

He joined ITV in August 2010 as Managing Director of ITV Studios, now the largest production company in the UK with the US Group the largest independent unscripted TV company in America. As well as the UK and the US, Lygo also led the rest of ITV’s international production business in Australia, Germany, France and the Nordics, as well as 40,000 hours of programming under the ITV Studios Global Entertainment arm.

Prior to joining ITV Studios, Lygo was Channel 4’s Director Television and Content, with responsibility for the Channel 4 Group’s portfolio of channels. Channel 4 programming highlights under Kevin Lygo’s stewardship included Jamie’s School Dinners, The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, Brat Camp, Deal or No Deal, Green Wing, Hamburg Cell, Skins, Mo, Omagh, One Born Every Minute, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Sex Traffic, Shameless and Supernanny.

Kevin first joined Channel 4 as Head of Entertainment and Music in 1997 and presided over an acclaimed expansion of the channel’s entertainment portfolio. Commissions during his tenure in this role included So Graham Norton, Trigger Happy TV, Top 10s, Smack the Pony, Spaced, Black Books, Da Ali G Show, Brass Eye and The 11 O’clock Show. Kevin also acted as Controller for the successful launch of Channel 4’s digital entertainment channel, E4, in January 2001. Lygo left Channel 4 in late 2001 to spend two years as Director of Programmes at Five, where was credited with broadening the channel’s programme offering from a reliance on films, sport and acquisitions to embrace original UK production.

He re-joined Channel 4 as Director of Television in November 2003 and in 2007 he was promoted to Director of Television and Content.

Lygo began his career in television in the early 1980s, as a BBC general trainee.