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Sir James Ian Raley Trethowan (20 October 1922 – 12 December 1990) was a British journalist, radio and television broadcaster and administrator who eventually became
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 governmen ...
of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
from 1 October 1977 to 31 July 1982, having previously been managing director of BBC network radio from 1970 to 1976.
Career
Trethowan was educated at the independent
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553. ...
school near
Horsham in
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...
, and started work as a journalist and parliamentary lobby correspondent. He became a presenter for
Independent Television News
Independent Television News (ITN) is a UK-based television production company. It is made up of two divisions: Broadcast News and ITN Productions. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, N ...
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, co-presenting
ITN's coverage of the
1959 general election.
He moved to the BBC in about 1963, and was part of
Grace Wyndham Goldie's group of heavy hitting journalists which included
Richard Dimbleby
Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster, who became the BBC's first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.
As host of the long-running current affairs ...
and
Robin Day
Sir Robin Day (24 October 1923 – 6 August 2000) was an English political journalist and television and radio broadcaster.
Day's obituary in ''The Guardian'' by Dick Taverne stated that he was "the most outstanding television journalist of ...
. Trethowan was a regular presenter of political programmes such as ''
Gallery
Gallery or The Gallery may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Art gallery
** Contemporary art gallery
Music
* Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s
Albums
* ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album
* ''Gallery'' (Gr ...
'', ''
Panorama'' and general election and budget specials. He presented the BBC's tribute programme to President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
on the day of his
assassination.
A
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
, and a close friend of the former prime minister Sir
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
, Trethowan has been criticised for his support of the
Security Service "vetting" of BBC employees which has often been seen as a means of weeding out leftists in the corporation. Trethowan allowed MI5 to remove half the content from a
Panorama documentary made by BBC journalist
Tom Mangold
Thomas Cornelius Mangold (born 20 August 1934) is a British broadcaster, journalist and author. For 26 years he was an investigative journalist with the BBC '' Panorama'' current affairs television programme.
Personal life
Tom Mangold was born ...
, this emerged in December 2011, when 30-year-old British government papers were released. Trethowan told the press at the time that nobody from the government had seen the film or put pressure on the BBC but in fact he had met the heads of Security Service (
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
) and the
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), shown them a tape of the programme and invited them to suggest cuts to it. The programme-makers defended their programme and, although changes were made, the transmitted version still annoyed the intelligence agencies. However, his genuflection to those in power ensured that his five years in charge of the BBC were generally very stable and secure for the organisation.
Cautious and conservative-minded, he was responsible for the sacking of
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole; 25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995) was an English comedian, radio disc jockey and television presenter. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the mid-1960s, he was one of the fi ...
from
Radio 1 Radio 1 or Radio One most commonly refers to:
*BBC Radio 1, a music radio station from the BBC
** BBC Radio 1Xtra, a digital radio station broadcasting black music
*CBC Radio One, a talk radio station operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporatio ...
in 1970 for making a joke suggesting that the wife of
John Peyton, the transport minister in the Conservative government, had only passed her driving test because she had "slipped the examiner a fiver".
In 1979, when Trethowan was Director-General, the BBC governors scuppered a plan to broadcast
Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson (born 28 March 1935) is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his television talk show '' Parkinson'' from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007, as well as other talk shows and programmes both in the U ...
's chat show three nights a week, probably because the idea seemed too populist.
Trethowan's final months at the BBC saw the
Thatcher government dissatisfied with what it saw as the corporation's insufficiently patriotic coverage of the
Falklands War. From 1987 until his death from
motor neurone disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most commo ...
, he was chairman of
Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992.
Thames Television broa ...
. He was
knighted in 1980.
In 1994, when announcing her plans to reduce the dominance of
received pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geog ...
and include more regional accents on
Radio 3 and
Radio 4,
Liz Forgan
Dame Elizabeth Anne Lucy Forgan, DBE (born 31 August 1944) is an English journalist, and radio and television executive.
Early life
Forgan was educated at Benenden School, Kent, and St Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-female college.
She ini ...
(who then held Trethowan's old post as managing director of BBC network radio) said that she wanted to move away from the attitude she said he had expressed when he heard a
Birmingham accent on BBC radio and said "What is that sound doing on the BBC? Get it off."
References
External links
*
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
article by Brian Wenham, ‘Trethowan, Sir (James) Ian Raley (1922–1990)’
accessed 29 May 2007.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trethowan, Ian
1922 births
1990 deaths
BBC executives
People educated at Christ's Hospital
Neurological disease deaths in England
Deaths from motor neuron disease
Knights Bachelor