Sir Paul Leonard Fox, (born 27 October 1925) is a British

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

executive, who spent much of his broadcasting career working for BBC Television, most prominently as the Controller of

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

between 1967 and 1973.

Early life

Fox was educated in Bournemouth and served in the Parachute Regiment, 1943–46.

BBC career

Fox began his career at the Corporation in the 1950s, writing scripts for the ''

Television Newsreel ''Television Newsreel'' is a British television programme, the first regular news programme to be made in the UK. Produced by the BBC and screened on the BBC Television Service from 1948 to 1954 at 7.30pm, it adapted the traditional cinema news ...

'' programme before going on to create and edit the popular sports programme ''Sportsview''. While editing ''Sportsview'' in 1954 he hit upon the idea of creating the annual

BBC Sports Personality of the Year The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just one, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Several new awards have been ...

award, a glittering ceremony that is still held every December by the Corporation and seen as one of the major events in

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

sport. By the early 1960s he had been promoted to Editor of '' Panorama'' and later Head of Public Affairs at BBC Television and in this role was heavily involved in the news coverage of the assassination of

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

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 ...

in 1963 and the subsequent reaction to the events in the United Kingdom. In 1967 he became the Controller of

a post he held for six years, one of the longest tenures of any BBC Channel Controller. His achievements in the role included the launch of the enduring ''

Dad's Army ''Dad's Army'' is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran fo ...

'' and overseeing the transition of BBC1 into colour in 1969. He also commissioned ''

The Two Ronnies ''The Two Ronnies'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from April 1971 to December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo sections, seria ...

'', ''Bruce Forsyth and the'' '' Generation Game'' and the '' Parkinson'' talk show in 1971. All the Moon landings of Project Apollo occurred during his tenure, and Fox allocated generous time on his network for

coverage Coverage may refer to: Filmmaking * Coverage (lens), the size of the image a lens can produce * Camera coverage, the amount of footage shot and different camera setups used in filming a scene * Script coverage, a short summary of a script, wri ...

Later career

Ward Thomas brought in Fox as Head of Programmes of

Yorkshire Television ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

(YTV) in 1973, and later became managing director of Yorkshire Television between 1977 and 1988. During this period he was quite vocal in his disapproval of the ultimately unsuccessful poaching in 1985 of ''

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

'' from the BBC by fellow ITV contractor

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 ...

.Anthony Haywar
Obituary: Bryan Cowgill
''The Independent'', 17 July 2008 This permanently soured his relationship with Thames executive Bryan Cowgill, who had been a former colleague at the BBC. Whilst at YTV, Fox was prominent in representing the managerial view in the industrial dispute between members of the ACTT

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

and the ITV companies, which blacked out the network for three months in 1979. He was chairman of ITN from 1986 to 1988 and later managing director of BBC Television (1988–91). Fox retired from the BBC at the age of 65 in 1991 and became chairman of the Racecourse Association from 1993 to 1997, chairman of DISASTERS EMERC Committee from 1996 to 1999 and a sports columnist for ''The'' ''Daily Telegraph'' from 1991 to 2003.

Honours

Fox was honoured with a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1985 and was knighted in 1991. He was awarded the

Honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

Doctor of Laws A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...

(LL.D.) by

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

in 1984 * , and the

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Docto ...

(D.Litt.) from

Bradford University The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

in 1991, and the Royal Television Society Gold Medal for Outstanding Services to television in 1992.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Paul 1925 births Living people BBC One controllers British television executives BAFTA fellows Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Knights Bachelor Mass media people from Bournemouth International Emmy Founders Award winners British Parachute Regiment soldiers British Army personnel of World War II Yorkshire Television