Gourt Home::Gourt :: Michael Grade
Michael Ian Grade CBE (born March 8, 1943) is a British businessman and a distinguished figure in the field of broadcasting.
He was born into a Jewish show business family. His father was the theatrical agent Leslie Grade, and his uncles were the impresarios Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont. He was educated at Stowe and St Dunstan's College.
He began his career as a journalist with the Daily Mirror in 1960, and was a sports columnist from 1964 to 1966. By an account he told himself on a Channel 4 chatshow entitled The Late Clive James, the job had been organised by his father. When his father suffered a serious stroke in 1966 the 23-year-old Grade moved into his theatrical business. In 1969 he moved to London Management & Representation. He went into television in 1973 when he joined LWT as Deputy Controller of Entertainment, achieving the post of Director of Programmes in 1977. At LWT Grade worked alongside both John Birt and Greg Dyke and as Director of Programmes commissioned the controversial series Mind Your Language as well as the popular The Professionals and the long running arts strand The South Bank Show. In 1981 he had a stint in the United States at Embassy Television and as an independent producer.
Grade joined BBC Television in 1984 as Controller for BBC One, becoming Director of Programmes in 1986 and Managing Director Designate in 1987. His tenure as Controller was especially controversial, with several high profile public outcries over decisions, such as axing Dynasty and postponing Doctor Who for eighteen months in 1985, along with the axing of many other shows such as the popular sci-fi drama The Tripods. It is not entirely clear the extent to which Grade alone was responsible for these decisions, but in the case of both Dynasty and Doctor Who, he became the most prominent target of the campaigns to save the series. (In recent years, Grade has, on a number of occasions, claimed that he axed Doctor Who out of personal dislike, but contemporary evidence does not support this; it may have had more to do with freeing studio time and other resources for pet projects such as EastEnders. Later in 1986 he took the decision to fire actor Colin Baker from the title role of Doctor Who; Grade was going out with Baker's ex-wife Liza Goddard at the time. In 2003, Grade remarked to a Telegraph journalist that he had fired Baker because he thought his portrayal of the Doctor was "utterly unlikable, absolutely god-awful in fact"). He was also responsible for the repeating of Australian soap opera Neighbours, at first purely an afternoon programme, in a later timeslot, on the advice of his daughter who was irritated that she could not watch it due to her being at school. This proved to be a successful scheduling decision that still remains in place as of 2006, and paid off at the time with audiences in excess of 15 million viewers for the new 5.35pm showings.
In 1987 he returned to commercial television, accepting the post of chief executive of Channel 4, replacing Jeremy Isaacs. Grade phased out some of the channel's more high-brow programming, for which he was accused of 'dumbing down'. Grade responded that in the week he took over at Channel 4 they had screened a repeat of The Far Pavilions in which the American actress Amy Irving 'blacked up' as an Indian Princess. During this period he was attacked by the Conservative press, in particular the columnist Paul Johnson in the Daily Mail gave him the soubriquet of Britain's 'pornographer-in-chief'. He was successful in developing the business ata time when Channel 4 was obliged to give aproportion of its advertising revenue to the rival ITV network. As well as securing talent from the BBC Grade also recognised the improving quality of US television output making series such as Friends and ER mainstays of the channels schedules. Grade also became embroiled in a vicious dispute with Chris Morris over the series Brass Eye. He went from Channel 4 to head First Leisure Corporation, leaving there in 1999 after a substantial restructuring to return to media as chairman of the new Pinewood and Shepperton studios company.
Grade had ambitions to become chairman of the BBC board of governors in 2001, but lost out to Gavyn Davies. He was also on the board of the ill-fated Millennium Dome. He currently has links with Octopus Publishing, the Camelot Group, and Hemscott, which he has indicated he will be giving up.
Following Davies' resignation as a result of the Hutton Inquiry report, it was announced on 2 April 2004 that Grade had been appointed Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC; at the time his only show-stopper requirement was that he did not have to give up being a Charlton Athletic Director. He took up his post on May 17.
Following the end of the revived series of Doctor Who in 2005, he wrote a letter to the BBC Director-General congratulating all involved in the project on its success, signing-off with "PS never dreamed I would ever write this. Must be going soft!"*)
He was made a CBE in 1998 and he is currently married to his third wife, Francesca. They have a son, Samuel.
External links
- bbc.co.uk: About the BBC: Michael Grade profile
- BBC News: Michael Grade is new BBC chairman
- BBC News: Michael Grade profile
1943 births | BBC Governors | BBC One controllers | British business people British Jews | British television executives
"Michael Grade"