Ian "Michael" Peacock

Television executive who led the launch of BBC Two in 1964
Fri 27 Dec 2019 12.17 EST

Michael Peacock, right, and David Attenborough in 1965 with toy versions of Hullabaloo and Custard, the kangaroo mascots used to promote BBC Two.

When Michael Peacock, who has died aged 90 of cancer, joined the BBC in 1952, it was an institution notoriously resistant to change. Six years later he made his most lasting contribution to the corporation's culture. He and his colleague Donald Baverstock were commissioned by Sir Hugh Greene, the director general, to write a report on BBC News - widely viewed as stuffy and conventional when compared with the viewer-friendlier output of Independent Television News, launched three years earlier on the rival channel.

Their report did not pull its punches. "We were disturbed by the 'BBC-ish' flavour," the two men wrote. "We noted the emphasis placed on the arrival and departure of cabinet ministers … the way in which the platitudes and cliches uttered by an accepted public figure are so often presented to the viewers as a significant statement; the tendency to concentrate on 'official' pronouncements and attitudes."

In 1961 Peacock was given the chance to correct these failings when he was appointed editor of the news operation, establishing the style of inquisitive reporting that today's politicians find so irritating. For him, it was a further step on a fast-track path that would soon lead to him running BBC Two and BBC One in turn, before leaving to pursue what was, at least initially, a less successful career in the commercial sector.

Michael was born in Christchurch, Hampshire, to Norman, an advertising executive, and his wife, Sara. At the outbreak of the second world war he was evacuated to the US, where he was a boarder at the Kimball Union academy in Meriden, New Hampshire. On his return he attended Welwyn Garden City grammar school before graduating in sociology from the London School of Economics.

Almost as soon as he had completed his degree he was hired by Grace Wyndham Goldie, the power behind what was then known as the talks department of BBC TV. In 1952 he joined the team of young men she had identified as being of outstanding promise, capable of making waves in this so far under-exploited medium.

Peacock produced a variety of factual TV programmes before being assigned specifically to Panorama, the weekly current affairs flagship, in 1955; as producer there he commissioned the spaghetti harvest hoax report broadcast on 1 April 1957. It created headlines largely because it was so out of character with the programme's staid "Auntie Beeb" image. He was editor of Panorama from 1959 to 1961. After running BBC News for two years he was made chief of programmes for the new BBC Two channel, due to launch in 1964.

His initial plan was for each evening's output to be grouped around a single theme, what he called the "seven faces of the week". After a disastrous opening night, when a power failure caused the cancellation of most of the programmes, it soon became clear that this restrictive formula did not work. Viewing figures were discouragingly low, in part because most TV sets had to be adapted to receive the new channel, although he did initiate several successful programme strands, including Match of the Day, The Likely Lads and The Forsyte Saga.

After little more than a year he was moved to head the main channel, BBC One, after Baverstock resigned in a huff at being asked to change places with him. Here Peacock was more successful; so much so that he was headhunted in 1967 to be managing director of London Weekend Television, a consortium put together by David Frost to bid for the ITV franchise then held by ATV.

Peacock's reputation, combined with the other high-profile names that Frost had persuaded to come on board, ensured that the consortium won the franchise, based on a promise to inject more quality programming into the weekend schedule: sophisticated satire (starring Frost), serious dramas and documentaries, rather than shows such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium that until then had been the characteristic weekend fare.

The launch night, 2 August 1968, had disturbing parallels with that of BBC Two four years earlier. Many programmes were blacked out, this time because of a trade union dispute. When normal service resumed, it quickly became clear that viewers were no more ready to accept the more cerebral schedule on offer than they had Peacock's themed nights on BBC Two. In the first six months of operation, weekend ITV audiences fell by 16.5%, with a consequent reduction in advertising revenue.

One problem was that Peacock, who had never previously worked for a commercial organisation, was reluctant to take instructions from the business executives on the LWT board. As Sir Robert Fraser, the director general of the Independent Television Authority, put it in a letter to his chairman: "The main criticism of Michael [is] that, with all his talent, he is a poor administrator and a worse leader of men." Fraser worried that the debacle at London Weekend would raise questions about ITA's procedures in awarding contracts. "For there is little doubt in my mind that LWT owes its appointment far more to the inclusion of Michael in the group than to any other single factor. I can remember how he dominated the interview with his consistent and brilliant talk."

For all that brilliance, the LWT board fired Peacock in September 1969, overriding the objections of many of his senior colleagues, six of whom resigned in solidarity. His subsequent career was in the independent production sector. In 1972 he teamed up with John Cleese and Antony Jay to form Video Arts  a company making training films. That same year he was appointed managing director of Warner Brothers TV, the British arm of the US company, and two years later moved to California as executive vice-president of Warner Brothers Television.

After two years he was back in Britain as the managing director of Dumbarton Films, a spin-off from the increasingly profitable Video Arts. He also helped launch Piccadilly Radio in Manchester in 1974. Such was his standing in broadcasting that in 1981 he was chosen as the first chairman of the Independent Programme Producers' Association, set up to protect the interests of producers in light of the rapid expansion of the market generated by the impending arrival of Channel 4.

In 1989 Video Arts was sold for £50m, of which his share was £10m. He used the windfall to establish the Michael Peacock Charitable Foundation, providing postgraduate scholarships at the LSE for students from the former Soviet Union. He also funded the LSE's purchase of the Royalty theatre, close to its campus, which was renamed the Peacock theatre in his honour, and was active in other fundraising activities for the LSE and was a longstanding member of its council. He was made OBE in 2005.

His main leisure pursuit was yachting. During the 1980s he was a member of the British team competing in the Admiral's Cup and in 1994 he formed a company, Truly Classic Yachts, marketing a yacht that he had helped design.

In 1956 he married Daphne Lee, a music teacher. She survives him along with their three children, Adam, Emma and Caspar.

Ian Michael Peacock, broadcasting executive, born 14 September 1929; died 6 December 2019
Back