Stuart Murphy

Stuart Neil Luke Murphy (born 6 November 1971, Leeds) was the Director, Entertainment Channels at Sky from 2012 until 2015. In that time he launched Sky Atlantic, oversaw the running of Sky1, Sky Living, Sky Arts, Sky 2, Challenge and Pick TV and was responsible for managing the commissioning team. After over six years at Sky, Murphy left the position and signed a deal with Sky's international distribution arm, Sky Vision, to develop comedy and drama scripts. He is a board member of the History channels, Jupiter Productions and is involved with virtual reality company Jaunt.

He attended St. Mary's Menston in West Yorkshire. He studied Political Geography at Clare College, Cambridge in 1990. He has two sons with his ex-wife. He is openly gay and first spoke publicly about his sexual orientation in a 2012 interview.

He started his career as a tea boy at BBC Manchester working in DEF II programming. He then worked on shows such as Reportage, The Sunday Show, Fist of fun, and Lifeswaps with Paul O'Grady. He later worked as a producer at MTV on Hanging Out with Davina McCall, and at the Big Breakfast. He re-joined the BBC to work for Jane Root in the Independent Commissioning Group, and later developed Radio One TV for Roly Keating, on UKTV.

He launched and ran UK Play, a music and comedy channel owned by UKTV from 1998.

In 2016 Murphy was made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society.

He joined BBC Choice, the BBC's forerunner to BBC Three, becoming Head of Programmes in 2000, and then Controller.

Became the first channel controller of BBC Three, which launched in February 2003. He commissioned comedies including Little Britain (which had been originally commissioned by BBC Radio 4), Pulling, and Early Doors as well as various dramas including Torchwood, and Conviction. He kickstarted parenting programming on TV, with Who Rules The Roost, Honey, We're Killing The Kids, Little Angels and The House of Tiny Tearaways both presented by Tanya Byron. Other commissioned shows included Flashmob The Opera (a live opera from Paddington station) and Flashmob The Opera: Meadowhall.

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