Aubrey Edward Singer CBE (21 January 1927 – 26 May 2007) was a British broadcasting executive who spent most of his career at the BBC. He has been described as "''the greatest

director general A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a government ...

that the BBC never had''". Singer was born in

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, left school aged 17 to train as a

film editor Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. The film edit ...

, and joined the BBC in 1949. He was head of the Features Group which included Science & Features, Arts Features, and General Features. This group largely made documentary programmes. Singer took the lead in finding international funding for very ambitious co-productions, leading to the so-called 'Science Spectaculars' written by

Nigel Calder Nigel David McKail Ritchie-Calder (2 December 1931 – 25 June 2014) was a British science writer. Early life Nigel Calder was born on 2 December 1931. His father was Ritchie Calder. His mother was Mabel Jane Forbes McKail. He had four siblin ...

, and then the 13-part "personal view" series such as ''

Civilisation A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Civ ...

'' (1969) and ''

The Ascent of Man ''The Ascent of Man'' is a 13-part British documentary television series produced by the BBC and Time-Life Films first broadcast in 1973. It was written and presented by British mathematician and historian of science Jacob Bronowski, who ...

'' (1973). He was also largely responsible for the historic 1967 '' Our World'' global satellite broadcast, which featured

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

. Singer was the controller of

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...

from 1974 until 1978, who replaced Robin Scott and was replaced himself by

Brian Wenham Brian George Wenham (9 February 1937 – 8 May 1997) was the controller of BBC2 from 1978 until 1982. He was known for having nurtured ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'', and coverage of snooker and opera. He had been a senior producer for ITN on '' ...

. He spoke to the Oxford University Broadcasting Society in 1975. From 1978 Singer was managing director of

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

and from 1982 he was managing director of

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

. He was appointed a CBE in 1984. After early retirement from the BBC, he established White City Films where he was managing director until 1996. Singer married Cynthia Adams in 1949 and they had two children.

References

External links

Aubrey Singer: Obituary
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History of BBC2 Controllers by Ian Jones
1927 births 2007 deaths Mass media people from Bradford BBC executives BBC Two controllers English chief executives Film studio executives Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century English businesspeople {{UK-tv-bio-stub