Airey was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she studied Geography. She had attended a local comprehensive, then a boys' private school which had a mixed sixth form.
Career
Airey joined Central Independent Television in 1985 as a general trainee under the wing of then director of programmes, Andy Allen. Promotion followed. In 1989 she became Director of Programme Planning at Central and was appointed to the Central broadcasting board. When the ITV Network Centre was established in 1993, she moved to London to become the first Controller of Children's and Daytime Programmes. In 1994, she became Controller of Arts and Entertainment at Channel 4, chaired by Michael Grade. It was reported in The Sunday Times that her forthright manner had earned her the soubriquets "Scary Airey" and "Zulu Dawn". Airey joined Channel 5 in 1996, the year before its launch, as its first director of programmes. It was during her tenure that she famously agreed with an interviewer that some might think the channel's core strengths were "films, football and fucking" but added it was about a lot more. She was subsequently appointed as chief executive of the channel in 2000. In 2002, it was widely touted that ITV plc was hoping to recruit Airey as its chief executive. However she surprised the television industry by instead accepting a position at the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB. There she was responsible for running all Sky channels, except Sky Sports, and was placed in charge of programming and advertising sales. In 2006 she was made managing director of Channels and Services whereupon she gained additional responsibility for all third party channels, joint ventures and networked media. Airey left BSkyB to head up an independent production business backed by private investors however she was only with the company for a total of eight days before it was announced that the venture did not have sufficient cash to continue trading. Soon after, in May 2007, she was reunited with Michael Grade, joining ITV plc as Director of Global Content, running the broadcaster's production and global sales division. But the reunion did not last long. In May 2008, after eight months at ITV plc, Airey earned Grade's enmity when she resigned to rejoin Channel 5 as chairman and CEO, with a remit to increase profitability and audience share. This she did. RTL's decision in 2010 to exit UK broadcasting and sell the company to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell saw her elevated to the role of President of RTL-owned CLT-UFA. On 11 August 2010 it was announced Airey would leave Channel 5 to take up a senior post with RTL, its former owners, later in 2010. In October 2015, Airey became the CEO at photo agency, Getty Images.
