Greg's angels

If it was a television show, it would probably be called Greg's Angels - or even Little Women.

Greg Dyke, the BBC director general, has appointed the first woman to be director of television, the second most important job in the corporation.

The arrival of Jana Bennett in April will mean that the top three positions in production at the BBC are filled by women. The controllers of BBC1 and BBC2 are, respectively, Lorraine Heggessey and Jane Root - and Ms Bennett will be their boss.

However, Mr Dyke has not appointed just any women. The director-general is somewhat diminutive and by all appearances the woman he has chosen to surround himself with are on the short side too. Ms Heggessey is 5ft 3in, Ms Root around 5ft 5in and Ms Bennett no more than 5ft 6in.

Indeed, Ms Heggessey's nickname at the BBC is La La, after one of the Teletubbies.

As one senior BBC insider - female - said today: "They are all small, aren't they? It's like The Borrowers on the sixth floor."

It can, therefore, be safely assumed that Janet Street-Porter, at 6ft, will not be getting a senior job at Television Centre in the near future.

Ms Bennett, 45, currently executive vice-president and general manager with Discovery Communications in the US, was born in New Hampshire and moved to England when she was 13. She will be the first American to work at the BBC at such a senior level and will take over from Mark Thompson, who recently left to become the chief executive of Channel 4.

It marks a return to the corporation for Ms Bennett, where she has spent most of her career and where she was responsible for commissioning award- winning programmes such as Walking With Dinosaurs and The Human Body.

She said she was looking forward to working with Mr Dyke and the executive team "to make sure the BBC is in strong shape with a clear vision for the future".

Ms Bennett went to Oxford University and has a master's degree from the London School of Economics. She joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1979 and worked on the Money Programme and Newsnight. She was editor of Horizon for four years before making her name as head of BBC science programmes and joining the BBC board of management in 1997 as Director of Production. Describing her programme-making strategy, she once said: "Aim high and aim right. Be ambitious. And don't be afraid to look dead expensive."

Mr Dyke said that Ms Bennett's experience in the US commercial sector gave her an "invaluable perspective" and that her track record at the BBC was "brilliant". He added: "She is well respected, well liked and has achieved great success since going to the States."

Ms Heggessey became the first female controller of BBC1 last year and is described as fiercely ambitious and brave. In 1994, she made a series about East End villains in which characters such as the Kray Twins and "Mad" Frankie Fraser talked about their lives. Ms Heggessey went so far as to meet Fraser in a restaurant with her hungry two-month-old. She said: "I don't know whether he had seen many women breast-feeding but I decided I had to tough it out." Famously, she went on Blue Peter to explain why presenter Richard Bacon had been sacked for taking cocaine.

However, she was not the first female BBC TV controller. That honour falls to Ms Root, who took up her mantle in 1998 and controls BBC2's £72 million annual budget. She was formerly head of the BBC's Independent Commissioning Group and was responsible for hits such as The Cops and Dinnerladies.

Ms Bennett's appointment signals a growing trend at the BBC. In 1978, when Patricia Thornton was made first female correspondent, the reaction from male commentators was condescending. Six years later the BBC launched a major inquiry into why so few women had top jobs in the corporation. But it wasn't until 1990 when John Birt, as directorgeneral, introduced an anti-sexism database, that the tide began to turn. Today around 32.8 per cent of senior management is female.