Simon Shaps

Simon Shaps (born 10 September 1956) is a British television executive and producer, and former ITV director of television.

Shaps attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree, Hertfordshire and studied English at Magdalene College, Cambridge.^[1]

He began his career as a reporter on the Cambridge Evening News in 1979; in a speech to the Royal Television Society (RTS) he described this time as "a two-year stint in Siberia".

In 1982 he joined Thames Television as a researcher, having been turned down by the BBC for a job as a graduate trainee. As a television producer he produced Strange but True? and The One That Got Away.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997 he became director of programmes at Granada Television in Manchester. In 2001 he became Managing director of Granada content. In November 2003 he became chief executive of Granada Television.^{[citation needed]}

He became ITV director of television on 21 September 2005,^[2] leaving in 2008. Under his leadership, ITV revived its programme line-up, unceremoniously dispensing with many long-running programmes.

He is married with three children.

• List of Old Haberdashers

• Simon Shaps at IMDb