Name Brian Park | Role Television producer | |
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Awards Producers Guild of America Award - David L. Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Long-Form Television Similar People Paul Marcus, Rebecca Eaton, John Madden, Ann McManus, Tim Sullivan | ||
Brian Park is a Scottish television producer and executive. He was born in Fife but lived in Aberdeen’s Bucksburn between the ages of nine and 17. He acted when he was a child and joined the Aberdeen Children’s Theatre at the age of 13, appearing in an episode of Dr Finlay’s Casebook.
Park joined Granada Television after graduating from Edinburgh University. He rose through the television ranks and, after leaving for a two-year spell with Tyne Tees Television, he returned to Granada in 1992 as head of entertainment where he produced the award-winning Prime Suspect, September Song and the pilot for My Wonderful Life.
In 1997, Park was appointed executive producer of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street following a decline in its ratings. Park became known as the "axeman" in the popular press after he sanctioned the removal of several long-running characters from Coronation Street, including Derek Wilton, Andy McDonald, Bill Webster, Maureen Holdsworth, and Don Brennan. He introduced more sensational storylines such as Deirdre Rachid's wrongful imprisonment, as well as a range of new characters such as transsexual Hayley Cropper and the Battersby family, in a bid to capture a younger audience and reinvent the show. Many of his storylines were ratings successes.
Park left Coronation Street in 1998 to start Shed Productions with Coronation Street script executive Ann McManus, which produced TV shows such as Bad Girls, Waterloo Road and Footballers Wives.
In 2009, Park had a brain aneurysm while holidaying in Italy and underwent brain surgery.