Pact is saddened by the news that Ann McManus, TV writer and co-founder of trailblazing UK indie, Shed Productions has died at the age of 67.
After starting her career as a teacher in Glasgow, McManus entered the TV industry as a scriptwriter on soaps in the early nineties. She went on to co-found Shed Productions (which became Shed Media) in 1999 alongside Eileen Gallagher (her civil partner since 2006), Maureen Chadwick and Brian Park.
The company's first commission, the prison-set drama Bad Girls for ITV, was a boundary-pushing series which featured the first long-term lesbian relationship on British television. More hits across a range of genres were to follow, created and written by McManus, including Footballers' Wives, Supernanny and Waterloo Road.
McManus' partner, Eileen Gallagher, was Pact Chair during our successful campaign to introduce Terms of Trade in the early 2000s. Utilising the change in law which allowed indies to retain their IP for the first time, Shed Media would become one of the most successful UK independent production groups, selling its content and formats to hundreds of territories worldwide. McManus and her co-creative director at Shed, Maureen Chadwick stood down from the company's board in 2008. Warner Bros. acquired a majority stake in the business in 2010, eventually taking full control and re-branding it Warner Bros. Television Productions UK in 2014.
McManus and Gallagher also set up an MA in television fiction writing at Glasgow Caledonian University in the late-2000s, to encourage new writers into the industry.
From everyone at Pact, we send our thoughts and condolences to Eileen and all of Ann's family and friends.