A man of our times

Held in great regard by colleagues across the UK networks, he was twice chairman of the council which oversees the ITV federal system, from 1968-70 and again from 1978-80. He was also a founding director of Channel 4, launched by his friend Jeremy Isaacs in 1982. A couple of years earlier Bill had commissioned Isaacs, a Glaswegian and then an independent producer, to make the controversial film A Sense of Freedom, the story of Gorbals hardman-turned-sculptor Jimmy Boyle.

This powerful, well-made film owed its existence to Bill's steadiness under fire. Jeremy Isaacs said in a retirement tribute last May: ``Of all the people I worked with in my time in television, I have never worked with anyone I liked more or respected more. A Sense of Freedom was a big film on a difficult subject but Bill Brown bravely stood by me and the film makers against hostile press and public opinion. He also gave marvellous support to the board of Channel 4 in the difficult early days when newspapers were calling for my sacking.'' When the old friends both got knighthoods in the same Honours List, Isaacs sent a characteristically terse telegram saying simply ``Snap''.

After attending Ayr Academy and graduating in accountancy at Edinburgh University, Bill Brown was a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery for the period of his National Service. Bill went to work in television advertising sales where he honed the business acumen which steered Scottish Television through some difficult periods, particularly the destruction of Scottish Television's Theatre Royal studio by fire in 1969 which coincided with Thomson's sale of his shareholding.

Roy Thomson's early STV, his ``licence to print money'' which funded the growth of a business empire, had mostly been content to schedule entertainment supplied by the large ITV companies in England or bought in from America. Scottish Television's original productions tended towards the cheap and cheerful, most famously The One O'Clock Gang. When Roy Thomson departed Scottish Television, propelled on his way by the Independent Television Authority, Bill Brown set about building the company's commitment to public service broadcasting.

In the 1970s and 80s, Scottish Television strengthened its local factual output with improved news, documentary, and arts coverage. It also produced popular drama series such as Taggart and Take The High Road for the UK network.

Former chairman of Granada Television, Sir Denis Forman, said: ``Network production in ITV used to be controlled almost totally by five major companies. Bill fought successfully to increase the share of output made by the smaller companies like Scottish. He was a most equable man, a great listener, but he would always lighten the scene by dropping a bit of yeast into the conversation.''

The standards Bill Brown set ensured regular renewal of the commercial broadcasting licence for Central Scotland. Shadow Chancellor and former STV producer, Gordon Brown, said: ``He had a tremendous sense of public service which was crucial to Scottish Television and his work with the arts. Bill was calm, commonsensical, and utterly straightforward.''

At the end of the eighties, after Sir Alan Peacock's report encouraging the deregulation of television, Mrs Thatcher at a Downing Street seminar denounced ITV as ``the last bastion of restrictive practices''. Bill was among those slapped down by the Prime Minister when he tried to make a reasoned defence of ITV's achievements. Henceforth his legendary equanimity evaporated when confronted by Mrs Thatcher's hostility to public service broadcasting of the kind he championed throughout his working life.

Despite the introduction of an ``ITV auction'' in 1991 the company was unopposed in its application for a renewed licence for Central Scotland. After the upsets elsewhere in that franchise round Scottish Television emerged unscathed as the longest-serving ITV company still broadcasting to its original region. The director-general of the BBC, John Birt, formerly an LWT executive, said earlier this year: ``Bill Brown was at the heart of the ITV system longer than any other senior executive and I felt privileged to sit alongside him for part of that period. When Bill spoke people listened because he was a wise man with old-fashioned values and qualities of decency, gentility, and integrity.''

On his retirement as managing director in 1990, he became non-executive chairman of Scottish Television, and also served as chairman of the Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society from 1989 to 1994. He was a longtime director of Radio Clyde (founded by one of his apprentices, Jimmy Gordon), and subsequently of Scottish Radio Holdings. He also served on the boards of the news organisation ITN, and was a founder director of the GMTV consortium which won the ITV breakfast broadcasting franchise in 1993. He was a trustee of the National Museums of Scotland and received honorary doctorates from Edinburgh and Strathclyde universities.

A personal interest in the arts was evidenced back in the 1970s by his enthusiasm for the restoration of Scottish Television's burnt-out studio at the Theatre Royal as the permanent home of Scottish Opera, a venture Bill undertook with friends such as Alexander Gibson, John Boyle, and Gavin Boyd. As a director of the Scottish Opera Theatre Trust he delighted in the company's artistic triumphs.

His greatest challenge in an overly busy ``retirement'' came in the chairmanship of the Scottish Arts Council with its fractious creative constituencies. Again Bill Brown brought to the role all his inherent diplomacy allied with the good sense which came from deep in his Ayrshire roots. In four turbulent years the Scottish Arts Council was devolved from the Arts Council of Great Britain, the exasperating saga of the surplus Scottish orchestra was played out, crafts were brought within the remit and large amounts of new money from the National Lottery were distributed. A senior civil servant recently volunteered his view that Bill was one of the most able chairmen the Scottish Office had ever appointed to a public body. The civil exterior masked a steely will in defence of propriety or principle.

Bill kept fit through gardening and his beloved golf. He was a member of the Royal and Ancient at St Andrews and latterly Captain of Prestwick Golf Club in his native Ayrshire. His unpretentious approach was encouraged by his wife Nancy with her Canadian disdain for the conceits of the class system and impatience with pomposity. Nancy shared Bill's love of the arts and they were enthusiastic attendees at events in Scotland. Three daughters, Sarah, Kate, and Jane, and son Robert also ensured that Bill was in touch with contemporary attitudes and was quickly corrected in any fogeyish tendency.

It was my privilege to work for Bill Brown at Scottish Television, first as his director of programmes from 1985 to 1990, then as managing director under his chairmanship until May of this year. Bill was intensely proud of the company he had fashioned and ambitious for its future. In the 1980s he made the funds available to expand production. By 1993 the output of programming had more than doubled and Scottish Television had also become a major supplier of programming to the ITV network. Bill was the perfect boss - equable, readily amused, tolerant of temperament and the artistic insistence on the right to fail. Crucially in a small country he protected his programme makers from untoward political and commercial pressure. This integrity and generosity of spirit made him a much-loved leader to all at Cowcaddens.

Perhaps his inherent moderation made Bill appear so ageless. At his warm farewell to Scottish Television last May, a ``then and now'' photomontage showed him in 1996 almost un-changed from 1966. This eternal youthfulness makes it all the more unacceptable to his host of friends that he should be struck down so soon after retirement. The reaction to news of his sudden illness in recent weeks revealed that Bill Brown was not only one of the most respected men in public life in Scotland, but also one of the best liked. His was a life well lived.