Veteran programming executive and former History Channel president Jana Bennett died Thursday at 66.

Bennett, in a 2019 interview with The Evening Standard, revealed that she was suffering from a brain tumor and was supporting research focusing on the disease.  

Bennett served as History Channel’s president and general manager from 2015 to 2017, overseeing the production of such hit series as Roots and Vikings. Named as a Multichannel News Wonder Woman in 2017, Bennett originally joined A+E Networks in 2013 to oversee the rebrand of BIO into FYI. Bennett also oversaw operations for TLC in the late 1990s.

Prior to A+E, Bennett ran British-based BBC Worldwide from 2010 to 2012, part of a multi-decade stint at the BBC. 

“All of us at A+E Networks deeply mourn the loss of our friend and colleague Jana Bennett,” Paul Buccieri, president & chairman, A+E Networks said in a statement. “Jana had an extraordinary career in media and her contributions to the A+E Networks family are too enormous to count. She was a groundbreaking, game-changing, generous and beautiful person. She will be terribly missed by all of us, and especially by me. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.” ■ 

Longtime A+E Networks executive Jana Bennett will leave her post as head of History, the company confirmed Friday.

Bennett, who was named History president and general manager in 2015, will leave to focus on a new entrepreneurial venture that will split her time between New York and London, according to A+E CEO Nancy Dubuc, who added the Bennett approached her this past spring about leaving the company.

Bennett, who was named a Multichannel News 2017 Wonder Women, joined A+E Networks in 2013 to help rebrand BIO into FYI before moving into the History position. 

“I am enormously grateful for the leadership, passion and commitment she has brought to A+E Networks," said Dubuc in a statement. "Please join me in wishing Jana all the best in her new endeavor." 

In a statement, Bennett said that while the decision to leave was “difficult,” she said it was time to start the next chapter in her life. “I am confident that History will go from strength to strength and will continue to tell stories that America and the rest of the world loves.”

 Below is Dubuc’s memo regarding Bennett’s departure:

Nearly four years ago, Jana Bennett moved from London and joined A+E Networks to launch FYI. This spring, Jana came to me and told me that she wanted to split her time between London and NY and start a new entrepreneurial venture aimed at creating the best of British and American content for both markets.

I’m immensely grateful for the amazing job she has done here at A+E Networks. From launching FYI to wide acclaim, to growing LMN, to leading HISTORY back into growth and securing its position as a premium brand, Jana has been a valued member of the Management Team.

Over the last two years at HISTORY, Jana has built a strong lineup of historical documentary series and boosted its scripted slate, successfully launching ROOTS and SIX. She has helped build a powerful pipeline of other new series, and with the very promising Knightfall coming later this year, is making HISTORY the destination for historically based drama.

Our company has benefited from the many formats and series developed under her watch includingMarried at First Sight, Seven Year Switch, the Tiny House franchise and Escaping Polygamy.

 I am enormously grateful for the leadership, passion and commitment she has brought to A+E Networks. Please join me in wishing Jana all the best in her new endeavor.

JANA BENNETT

TITLE: President and General Manager

COMPANY: History

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Has brought viewers everything from Escaping Polygamy to Sherlock. Successfully relaunched A+E Networks’ Bio channel as FYI and reprogrammed sibling movie network LMN. Oversaw A+E’s multichannel roadblock airing of Roots and is now leading History into high-profile documentaries and scripted series. Honored by Queen Elizabeth for her contributions to science broadcasting at BBC.

QUOTABLE: “[Finding hit shows] is just about having your antennae out about the way people are living their lives. You just have to keep tapping into different interests and not just think about what we’ve already done, that’s already been consumed. Audiences want to be surprised.”

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When Jana Bennett started her first stint as a U.S. cable executive in 1999, her mission was to lead Discovery-owned TLC into the then-new world of reality programming with the motto “Life Unscripted.”

Now that she has returned to New York after more than a decade as a top BBC executive, Bennett is leading A+E Networks-owned History in just the opposite direction: toward documentaries and scripted series that are defining the current era of “peak TV.’’

A journalist-turned-executive, Bennett has overseen a lengthy string of successful programs, from Trading Spaces for TLC to Walking With Dinosaurs and Doctor Who for the BBC, to Roots and Vikings for History. In 2013, she reinvented A+E’s Bio channel as FYI and pushed it and sibling LMN to double-digit ratings growth in her first year.

“Jana is an accomplished executive with an enviable track record of success. She possesses the rare combination of creative and business acumen that every business leader should strive for,” Paul Buccieri, president of A+E Studios and A+E Networks Portfolio Group, said.

ROSE THE RANKS AT BBC

Before and after her stint at Discovery, Bennett spent what many people would consider a full career in the U.K. at the BBC. She started as a trainee after college and rose to be the top content executive for the publicly funded and regulated television provider. Bennett oversaw six networks, including two children’s networks she introduced and BBC’s digital iPlayer service.

She also ran BBC Worldwide, the broadcaster’s commercial arm, from 2010 to 2012. She has even received an Order of the British Empire award from Queen Elizabeth for her contributions to science broadcasting.

That makes her sound thoroughly British — but Bennett actually is a Yank, born in Cooperstown, N.Y. Her educator parents moved the family to England just as Bennett became a teenager, so she went to high school there and then attended Oxford.

At first, she said, she was a “fish out of water’’ who never lost her American accent. But that turned out to be a useful perspective. “In my career that’s been true in moving companies or organizations or subject areas. I guess it helped me take a slightly oblique, sideways look at what I’m doing.”

She spent three years away from the BBC when she took over TLC in 1999. “I’d never run a channel, never worked as an adult in the U.S.,’’ she said. “I thrive by the cha l lenge of something being new and different.”

By the time she returned to New York in 2013 to launch FYI and oversee LMN, the reality and semi-scripted shows on U.S. cable networks had proliferated to the point of “things being a bit same-y,’’ she said. At FYI, she and programming head Gena McCarthy added “tiny house” shows and Married at First Sight.

Now, Bennett is not only putting “the history back in History,’’ as she has said, but broadening its offerings to include more recent events, such as Six, the scripted series based on the Navy SEAL team that captured Osama bin Laden, and timely interpretations, such as The Black Man’s Guide to History starring Kevin Hart.

Viewers want true stories, she said — regardless of whether the national political conversation is in a “post-fact” era. “There’s almost a craving for those essential stories. … The pace of change that people feel they’re experiencing right now, as we’re in a true technological revolution, makes you hanker after stories that tell you how we got here right now.’’

“History itself and History as a brand is a very powerful storytelling platform where there’s an infinite variety of stories to be told,” Bennett said. “The great thing about History as a brand is that it’s very trusted. … I think it’s a huge strength and a huge responsibility.”

Viewers are also responding to the skyrocketing standard for scripted dramas, born out of intense competition among cable and streaming networks, and the more prominent platform that streaming services give documentaries. “The special treatment of big documentary stories has made them have even more [appeal]. Instead of being ‘duty programing,’ as we might have called it 10 years ago, it’s vying with drama for epic big stories.”

She credited mentors both formal and informal for helping her steady ascent at the BBC and A+E. The informal network is a group of women journalists she has known since her days as a trainee, and with whom she still shares a regular “GNO” — girls’ night out — in London.

Early in her career, she recalled, she almost didn’t pursue the job of head of BBC science programming because she was about to have a second child. Luckily, she said, someone urged her on and she would give the same advice: “Just go for it. All the other things you’re worried about will get solved.”

Now that second baby, a son named Skomer (appropriately enough, it’s a Viking name), is 22 and a student at the University of Vermont. Alexandra, 25, works for a consumer research company in London. Bennett lives in Brooklyn, near the iconic bridge, with her husband, producer and former BBC executive Richard Clemmow, “a Brit who loves adventure.’’

HISTORY PASSION CAME EARLY

For fun, the amateur guitarist and singer takes in folk music at the nearby Jalopy Theater. And then there’s the thrill of American “big weather,” whether it’s near-hurricane winds or a blast of sunshine.

She began to fall in love with history as a child home sick from school — and as one of five sisters, enjoying the rare occasion of having her mother all to herself. She remembers her mother, a history teacher, reading books aloud with her about the California redwoods and the Egyptian pyramids. “That instilled in my bones a love of history and also a love of the international, the world at large.”

Several decades after that, Bennett and her mother, then 83, found themselves visiting Egypt during the Arab Spring protests. The melee in Tahrir Square led to looting and damage at the national archaeological museum, but the two women fought their way in regardless.

“Things that are interesting are worth fighting to discover,’’ Bennett said. “That was one of the things that has always motivated me. The media gives you great rewards if you remain curious.”

Related:MCN Review: 'Roots'

History on Memorial Day is launching its eight-hour Roots miniseries based on Alex Haley’s classic novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. History general manager Jana Bennett says the network’s four-night Roots miniseries is more of a revision than a remake of ABC’s groundbreaking 1977 Roots miniseries that will feature a more definitive historical retelling of African Warrior Kunta Kinte and his family’s struggle over many generations to survive slavery and eventually regain freedom.

Here’s what Bennett and History want you to know about Roots.

This is not your father’s Roots: “If you think back to 1977 when the first Roots television series was launched and then think about now 39 years later, there’s a lot more scholarship that’s gone on about the history of Africa and the history of the middle passage – there hasn’t been a lot of historical examination of it including the numbers involved, the uprising of the slaves on the ship, and the nature of the trade economically. There’s a lot more about the culture and the cities in Africa, so we’ve been able to add a lot more scholarship to this new vision of Roots. It’s an update – not just in terms of television technique and a whole new generation of actors -- but actually new scholarship woven into the narrative. We are telling Kunta Kinte’s story as well as his descendants’ stories, but we’re also bringing in fresh eyes to the story. Every night has a different director to reflect their vision. It’s new on alot of levels.”

The reboot is relevant to today’s issues: “There’s shared history, which is something that should be understood and appreciated by people living in America today. It’s also an international story because it’s a very big piece of history in terms of how America was made and how it affected Africa, so there’s a universality to the story, which makes it relevant now and going forward. We tell stories in history, but also history doesn’t stand still, so there’s always new things to say. When we decided to do Roots, we didn’t know how this would fit with current events at the time. We didn’t know about #BlackLivesMatter rising as a movement, nor about the debate about race in this country and the forms that it has taken this year. But as time has gone by since we decided to make this revision of Roots I have to say it lands right in the middle of very current debates about the nature of this society, so I think its even more relevant than we would have thought it was going to be. It was already going to be a universally epic story shared by all Americans, but it’s even more relevant in terms of the current debates happening about society today.”

Roots is focused on historical authenticity: “What we’ve been able to achieve is a high level of authenticity which is obviously fitting for the History Channel to be able to offer that to viewers. That includes bringing in archeologists and historians to tell us how to depict the towns and kingdoms in Africa, but also [costume designer] Ruth Carter’s costumes and designs are absolutely wonderful. The color indigo you’ll see every night was drawn from what dyes we knew were being used then. Also, women’s roles are really powerful and even more vividly drawn and upfront.  You’ll see that from the roles of Matilda and Kizzy – they really put women more into the forefront because they do play a historical role in the story of Roots, and were very resilient. They literally brought through the next generations, so from all those respects we brought in a lot of historical resources to the telling of Roots. It enhances our understanding in a lot of different ways.”

A+E Networks said Jana Bennett has been promoted to president and general manger of History, after previously overseeing FYI and LMN. She replaces Dirk Hoogstra, whom A+E said will "return to his roots in independent production." The company will seek a replacement for Bennett at FYI and LMN as her new appointment is immediate. Bennett, who came to A+E from the BBC in 2013, reports to A&E and History president Paul Buccieri and will be responsible for all strategic planning, programming, marketing and brand development at History and H2, A+E said.

In a release, Nancy Dubuc, President and CEO of A+E Networks, said: “Jana has one of the strongest track records building and shaping global brands – first at the BBC and now here at A+E Networks. She joined our company with the mandate to take our networks into new and exciting places and what she’s done with FYI in such a short amount of time is remarkable. HISTORY and H2 will greatly benefit from her creative prowess and steady stewardship.”

Buccieri said, “I have long been a fan of Jana’s work, particularly with what she’s done with FYI and LMN. Her vast experience in all genres of programming, marketing, distribution and digital is unparalleled and I’m very much looking forward to working with her at History.”

And Bennett, in the release, said: “I have a passion for HISTORY – where we’ve come from and where we are headed. I am thrilled that I have been asked by Nancy and Paul to lead the team that will bring one of the strongest and most respected brands across the globe into new and exciting territory.”

Of Hoogstra, Bennett said in the release: “We thank Dirk for his many contributions to HISTORY. He was the force behind some of the network’s greatest successes that helped propel HISTORY to become one of entertainment’s top brands.” 

A+E highlighted Bennett's work rebranding BIO to FYI in July 2014 (and later that year in Canada and Southeast Asian markets), achieving double-digit ratings growth and introducing new series and franchises including Married at First Sight, Arranged, Seven Year Switch and a pair of "Tiny House" shows. At LMN (rebranded from Lifetime Movie Network) she has added new original unscripted series and driven ratings gains in all day parts among women ages 25-54, A+E said.

History, meanwhile, has had some ratings disappointments, including the Memorial Day miniseries Texas Rising. For the summer, the network's primetime viewing average declined by 20%, to 1.525 million from 1.913 million, according to one analysis of Nielsen figures. A+E also has been making some executive realignments, such as broadening Lifetime executive vice president and general manager Rob Sharenow's duties to including being EVP and GM at A&E Network.

Bennett was president of BBC World Wide Networks & Global BBC iPlayer before coming to A+E Networks, which is a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group and Hearst Corp. Earlier in her career, she was general manager of TLC network.