Danny Cohen | MediaGuardian 100 2012
Job: controller, BBC1
Age: 38
Industry: broadcasting
2011 ranking: 14
A year of contrasts for the BBC1 controller. For every Olympics, there was a diamond jubilee pageant – pass the royal sick bag, please. For every Call the Midwife, there was The Royal Bodyguard. And The Voice had the highs, followed by the lows, in one neat Saturday night package.
But the positives outweighed the negatives for the man in charge of the UK's biggest television channel with a £1bn-plus budget to go with it. Not only that, his network avoided the worst of the cuts.
After less than two years in the job, Cohen is tipped for promotion. The Vision job will pay more, but is it as much fun? The immediate test will be to keep momentum and breathe life into The Voice. He will hope the second series has more stamina than the first.