Lorna Clarke is Director of Music at the BBC, and is responsible for the BBC’s music strategy.
With over 30 years broadcasting experience under her belt, Lorna kicked off her radio career in 1985 as a news reporter at BBC Radio Cornwall, which was followed by various production roles at BBC London/GLR, Metro Radio in Newcastle, and BBC World Service. Lorna made the switch back to commercial radio by joining Kiss 100 FM as a producer in 1990, the year it began broadcasting legally after many years as a London based pirate station. After moving around the network in various roles, Lorna became Programme Director at Kiss in 1994, and became the first person to win the Programme Director of the Year at that year’s Commercial Radio awards.
The BBC beckoned in 1997 and Lorna became Radio 1’s Head of Mainstream Programmes. Lorna joined BBC Television in 2003, where she worked on a variety of initiatives to find the next generation of emerging new talent across Factual TV, Sport Journalism, Children’s, Music Production, Animation, and film makers (direction). Between 2005 and 2010 Lorna was the founder and Director of Electric Proms, the BBC’s first multi-platform live music event, launching and curating a series of live concerts across BBC radio and TV, featuring artists including Adele, Dame Shirley Bassey, Sir Paul McCartney, Oasis, Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse. Lorna returned to radio in 2010 as Network Manager for Radio 2, 6 Music and Asian Network, gaining day to day accountability for the running of the networks, becoming Head of Production for Radio 2 and 6 Music in 2017. In September 2019, Lorna became Controller of Pop, gaining responsibility for the portfolio of five national popular music networks (Radio 1, Radio 2, 6 Music, Radio 1Xtra, Asian Network) as well as Live Events, music television commissioning and the visualisation team. In May 2022, Lorna’s role evolved with the added responsibility of BBC’s music strategy, which includes classical music from BBC Radio 3 and the world’s biggest and longest-running music festival, The Proms. During this time Lorna has commissioned a star-studded season of programming across TV, radio and digital platforms to celebrate 60 years of The Rolling Stones, including a world-exclusive four-part box-set of films, My Life as a Rolling Stone for BBC Two, as well as the annual coverage of Glastonbury, which won the Bafta TV Award for Best Live Event Coverage in 2024, for BBC Studios. Lorna commissioned Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World, a landmark four-part documentary series for BBC Two, which charted the history of the genre, and was executive produced by Chuck D and Lorrie Boula. In March 2024, the series won the Arts prize at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards, and later that year, she was honoured with the Outstanding Contribution award at Music Week’s Women in Music