Charles Curran (broadcaster)
Encyclopedia
Sir Charles John Curran (13 October 1921 – 9 January 1980), was a British
television executive
.
Charles Curran was born in Dublin. He served in the Indian army
from 1942-45, but left to work in the BBC Talks department. He resigned following a dispute to edit the "Canadian Fishing News", but he returned in 1951 to join BBC
Monitoring. Subsequent posts included Secretary and Director of External Broadcasting. While Director-General
, he served three terms as President
of the European Broadcasting Union
. He succeeded Ronnie Waldman
as Managing Director of the news agency
Visnews in 1977.
He was Director-General of the BBC
from 1 April 1969 to 30 September 1977. He was the first grammar school educated
Director-General
. Following his grammar school
education at Wath-on-Dearne he studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge
where he received a first class honours degree in History.
He is not to be confused with a former Conservative
Member of Parliament
Leslie Charles Curran
, although it has been said that they had broadly similar politics. Following the appointment of the former Conservative minister Lord Hill
as Chairman of the BBC Governors in 1967 (ironically, the Labour
Prime Minister
who appointed Hill, Harold Wilson
, had attacked Hill's appointment as chairman of the Independent Television Authority
under a Tory government in 1963), Curran's arrival marked a return to a more cautious approach after the radicalism of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene
.
Curran also suffered criticism from Harold Wilson
, at that time Leader of the Opposition, who claimed that the 1971 documentary Yesterday's Men was biased against him and the Labour Party.
Curran was more influenced by Mary Whitehouse
and other moralists than Greene had been, and was Director-General when Dennis Potter
's play Brimstone and Treacle
was banned in 1976 (although the decision to ban the play was ironically made by the more Left-leaning Alasdair Milne
). Curran also issued an apology to Whitehouse after she complained about a scene at the end of episode three of The Deadly Assassin
, a Doctor Who
serial broadcast in 1976, in which the Doctor, played by Tom Baker
, had his head held under water by a villain. Whitehouse had increased her criticism of the series during the previous two seasons under producer Philip Hinchcliffe
and script editor Robert Holmes
, who had taken it in a more adult direction, and Curran's apology marked a turning point in the BBC's support for the series. Philip Hinchcliffe
finished working on the series after three more serials and his successor, Graham Williams
, was ordered to lighten the tone and reduce the violence and horror content.
Some have suggested that the BBC under Curran was overtly middle-class, perhaps citing the claim by Edward Barnes, head of children's TV for the BBC at the time, that admirable characters should not be seen eating "chocolate and chips". There have also been repeated claims that MI5
had an overt influence on "vetting" BBC employees at the time, and those who believe that MI5 attempted to undermine the 1974-76 Labour government have claimed that it also influenced an overt Tory bias in BBC news bulletins of that period.
Conversely, it was under Curran that the BBC developed a distinctly populist current affairs format in the form of Nationwide, and also produced some of its best-loved and most consistently-repeated comedy series, such as Dad's Army
, Porridge and the first series of Fawlty Towers
. Curran has often been blamed for an unenthusiastic and somewhat censorious attitude towards Monty Python's Flying Circus
, but the Python team
still won many of their battles with BBC officialdom and produced one of the most innovative TV series of all time.
The Play for Today
series continued to take risks throughout Curran's eight years as Director-General and, in the drama series Days of Hope
which accounted the early years of the Labour movement in Britain, the BBC proved that it was not necessarily as Tory-biased as some thought (although significantly the series was never shown again; it might have been more likely to gain a repeat under Hugh Greene or Alasdair Milne). The Morecambe and Wise Show
became one of the best-loved British TV institutions ever between 1969 and 1977, and the Curran era also saw the development of Michael Parkinson
's hugely-popular Saturday-night chat show, which has become a major force again since its revival in 1998.
Following a period of ill health, Sir Charles Curran died from a heart attack
on 9 January 1980, aged 58. His funeral was held in Westminster Cathedral
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television executive
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
Charles Curran was born in Dublin. He served in the Indian army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...
from 1942-45, but left to work in the BBC Talks department. He resigned following a dispute to edit the "Canadian Fishing News", but he returned in 1951 to join BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Monitoring. Subsequent posts included Secretary and Director of External Broadcasting. While Director-General
Director-General of the BBC
The Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC.The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC and is now appointed by the BBC Trust....
, he served three terms as President
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the European Broadcasting Union
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union is a confederation of 74 broadcasting organisations from 56 countries, and 49 associate broadcasters from a further 25...
. He succeeded Ronnie Waldman
Ronnie Waldman
Ronald Hartley Waldman was a leading British television executive.He was born in London, the eldest son of Michael Waldman, OBE, JP and he was educated at Dame Alice Owen's School, Islington and Pembroke College, Oxford.He began as an actor and producer before joining the BBC Variety department...
as Managing Director of the news agency
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
Visnews in 1977.
He was Director-General of the BBC
Director-General of the BBC
The Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC.The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC and is now appointed by the BBC Trust....
from 1 April 1969 to 30 September 1977. He was the first grammar school educated
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
Director-General
Director-General of the BBC
The Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC.The position was formerly appointed by the Board of Governors of the BBC and is now appointed by the BBC Trust....
. Following his grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
education at Wath-on-Dearne he studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...
where he received a first class honours degree in History.
He is not to be confused with a former Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Leslie Charles Curran
Charles Curran (politician)
Charles Curran was a British Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament for Uxbridge from 1959 to 1966, when he lost to Labour. Curran regained the seat in 1970, holding it until his death in 1972. Michael Shersby was elected to succeed him in the subsequent by-election.-...
, although it has been said that they had broadly similar politics. Following the appointment of the former Conservative minister Lord Hill
Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton
Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton PC was a British administrator, doctor and television executive.Charles Hill was born in Islington, London and was educated at St Olave's Grammar School in Southwark, London. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge where he gained a first class degree...
as Chairman of the BBC Governors in 1967 (ironically, the Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
who appointed Hill, Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, had attacked Hill's appointment as chairman of the Independent Television Authority
Independent Television Authority
The Independent Television Authority was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" , the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom...
under a Tory government in 1963), Curran's arrival marked a return to a more cautious approach after the radicalism of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene
Hugh Greene
Sir Hugh Carleton Greene KCMG, OBE was a British journalist and television executive. He was the Director-General of the BBC from 1960―1969, and is generally credited with modernising an organisation that had fallen behind in the wake of the launch of ITV in 1955.-Early life and work:Hugh was born...
.
Curran also suffered criticism from Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, at that time Leader of the Opposition, who claimed that the 1971 documentary Yesterday's Men was biased against him and the Labour Party.
Curran was more influenced by Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse
Mary Whitehouse, CBE was a British campaigner against the permissive society particularly as the media portrayed and reflected it...
and other moralists than Greene had been, and was Director-General when Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
's play Brimstone and Treacle
Brimstone and Treacle
-Potter on Brimstone and Treacle:In 1978, Potter said:I had written Brimstone and Treacle in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated...
was banned in 1976 (although the decision to ban the play was ironically made by the more Left-leaning Alasdair Milne
Alasdair Milne
Alasdair David Gordon Milne is a former BBC producer who became Controller of BBC Scotland, the BBC's Director of Programmes and then Director-General of the BBC in July 1982. His resignation was forced by the BBC Governors in January 1987, following pressure from the Thatcher government...
). Curran also issued an apology to Whitehouse after she complained about a scene at the end of episode three of The Deadly Assassin
The Deadly Assassin
The Deadly Assassin is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 October to 20 November 1976...
, a Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
serial broadcast in 1976, in which the Doctor, played by Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...
, had his head held under water by a villain. Whitehouse had increased her criticism of the series during the previous two seasons under producer Philip Hinchcliffe
Philip Hinchcliffe
Philip Hinchcliffe is a British television producer, who brought shows including Private Schulz and The Charmer to the screen, probably best known for the overseeing of British television series Doctor Who from 1974-1977...
and script editor Robert Holmes
Robert Holmes (scriptwriter)
This entry is about the television scriptwriter. For other people with the same name, see Robert Holmes .Robert Colin Holmes was an English television scriptwriter, who for over twenty-five years contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK...
, who had taken it in a more adult direction, and Curran's apology marked a turning point in the BBC's support for the series. Philip Hinchcliffe
Philip Hinchcliffe
Philip Hinchcliffe is a British television producer, who brought shows including Private Schulz and The Charmer to the screen, probably best known for the overseeing of British television series Doctor Who from 1974-1977...
finished working on the series after three more serials and his successor, Graham Williams
Graham Williams
Graham Williams was a British television producer and script editor, whose best known work was on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who....
, was ordered to lighten the tone and reduce the violence and horror content.
Some have suggested that the BBC under Curran was overtly middle-class, perhaps citing the claim by Edward Barnes, head of children's TV for the BBC at the time, that admirable characters should not be seen eating "chocolate and chips". There have also been repeated claims that MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
had an overt influence on "vetting" BBC employees at the time, and those who believe that MI5 attempted to undermine the 1974-76 Labour government have claimed that it also influenced an overt Tory bias in BBC news bulletins of that period.
Conversely, it was under Curran that the BBC developed a distinctly populist current affairs format in the form of Nationwide, and also produced some of its best-loved and most consistently-repeated comedy series, such as Dad's Army
Dad's Army
Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...
, Porridge and the first series of Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers
Fawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve television program episodes were produced . The show was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played major characters...
. Curran has often been blamed for an unenthusiastic and somewhat censorious attitude towards Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
, but the Python team
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
still won many of their battles with BBC officialdom and produced one of the most innovative TV series of all time.
The Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
series continued to take risks throughout Curran's eight years as Director-General and, in the drama series Days of Hope
Days of Hope
Days of Hope is a BBC television drama serial produced in 1975. The series dealt with the lives of a working-class family from the turmoils of the First World War in 1916 to the General Strike in 1926...
which accounted the early years of the Labour movement in Britain, the BBC proved that it was not necessarily as Tory-biased as some thought (although significantly the series was never shown again; it might have been more likely to gain a repeat under Hugh Greene or Alasdair Milne). The Morecambe and Wise Show
Morecambe and Wise
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, usually referred to as Morecambe and Wise, or Eric and Ernie, were a British comic double act, working in variety, radio, film and most successfully in television. Their partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe's death in 1984...
became one of the best-loved British TV institutions ever between 1969 and 1977, and the Curran era also saw the development of Michael Parkinson
Michael Parkinson
Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...
's hugely-popular Saturday-night chat show, which has become a major force again since its revival in 1998.
Following a period of ill health, Sir Charles Curran died from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
on 9 January 1980, aged 58. His funeral was held in Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral in London is the mother church of the Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster...
.