Who Do You Think You Are? creator Alex Graham is in talks about setting up a TV production company with former Channel 4 chief executive Michael Jackson.

Graham is also seeking to launch a separate venture that would invest in media and entertainment businesses with the founders of All3Media, maker of shows including Call the Midwife and Midsomer Murders.

He founded The Voice maker Wall to Wall in 1987 and stepped down in 2013 having made a multimillion-pound fortune, with the business ultimately acquired by Time Warner.

Graham, a non-executive director of Guardian owner the Scott Trust, is now in exploratory talks about launching a production business with Jackson.

Former BBC1 and BBC2 controller Jackson, who is based in the US, recently hit the headlines after it emerged he had been approached by BBC director general Tony Hall about taking a senior role at the corporation.

Graham is also understood to be in separate talks with All3Media founders David Liddiment, a BBC trustee from 2006 to 2014, Steve Morrison and Jules Burns about launching a separate business that would back TV, media and entertainment companies.

The former ITV executives created All3Media, a federal system of about 20 production companies behind shows spanning Skins and The Only Way is Essex to Gogglebox and Midsomer Murders, in 2003.

The trio stepped down from the board of the business after Discovery and Virgin Media-owner Liberty Global acquired it for £500m in 2014.

In September, Liddiment, who during a five-year stint at ITV from 1997 commissioned some of its biggest hits including Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, was appointed as non-executive chairman of The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent co-producer FremantleMedia UK.

It is understood that the talks between all parties are understood to be at an early stage and may not lead to either venture coming to fruition.

News of the talks come as rumours continue to circulate that two other major TV industry figures – ITV’s recently departed director of television Peter Fincham and Tim Hincks, the president of the super-indie behind Big Brother, MasterChef and Peaky Blinders – might look to launch their own venture.

Last month, Danny Cohen, the BBC’s former director of television, re-emerged at the company that owns Warner Music heading a new entertainment division with hundreds of millions of pounds earmarked for investment in high-end TV, film, digital and theatrical productions.