Sir Robert Fraser was an Australian who found success in the United Kingdom

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...

 as a journalist, civil servant and eventually as the first Director General of the British 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...

 (ITA).

Originally hailing from Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Fraser came to the United Kingdom in the 1920s to follow up his degree from Melbourne University with further study at the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

. He worked as a writer for the Daily Herald newspaper before unsuccessfully attempting to get elected to Parliament in 1935. During the Second World War, Fraser joined the Ministry of Information

Minister of Information

The Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...

 where he became Head of Publications and launched a successful series of informative booklets about the war effort.

However, Fraser is probably best-known for his contribution to the ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 system through his work with the Independent Television Authority. He took the post of Director General at the ITA's inauguration in 1954, having been encouraged to do so by his friend Norman Collins

Norman Collins

Norman Collins was a British writer, and later a radio and television executive, who became one of the major figures behind the establishment of the Independent Television network in the UK...

 and the ITA Chairman Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark

Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...

. Fraser continued in the post until 1970, supervising most of the initial construction and development of ITV.