Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth (born 8 March 1943) is an English television executive and businessman. He has held a number of senior roles in television, including controller of BBC1 (1984–1986), chief executive of Channel 4 (1988–1997), chairman of the board of governors of the BBC (2004–2006), and executive chairman of ITV plc (2007–2009). He sat as a Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords from 2011 until after his appointment as chair of Ofcom, beginning in May 2022, and became a non-affiliated peer.
Early life Michael Ian Grade was born on 8 March 1943 in London, into a Jewish show business family originally called Winogradsky. His father was the theatrical agent Leslie Grade, and his uncles were the impresarios Lew Grade and Bernard Delfont. His family emigrated from Tokmak in present-day Ukraine in the 1910s. When he was three years old, his non-Jewish mother (Lynn Smith) left the family to conduct a relationship with wrestling commentator Kent Walton. Grade was brought up by his paternal grandmother, and he only saw his mother once more as an adult. He was educated at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire and St Dunstan's College in London.
Career Grade joined the Daily Mirror in 1960, and was a sports columnist from 1964 to 1966. By his own account (as related on Channel 4 chat show The Late Clive James), the job had been organised by his father. When Leslie Grade suffered a serious stroke in 1966, the 23-year-old Michael moved into his theatrical business. In 1969, he moved to London Management & Representation. Among the artists whom Grade represented were Morecambe and Wise (he successfully negotiated the duo's defection from ATV to BBC2 in 1968) and Larry Grayson.
LWT Grade entered the television industry in 1973 when he joined London Weekend Television (LWT) as deputy controller of programmes (entertainment).Steve Bryant "Grade, Michael (1943– )" in Horace Newcomb (ed.) Encyclopedia of Television], Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004, pp. 1020–21 During this time he bought the scripts of an African-American sitcom Good Times which had an all-black cast.Howard Malchow Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain?, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011, p.189 Adapted as The Fosters (1976–1977), it became the first British sitcom to have an entirely black cast. At LWT, Grade worked with both John Birt and Greg Dyke.
After he became director of programmes in 1977, Grade commissioned the series Mind Your Language, but later cancelled it. At an event at the Edinburgh Television Festival in 1985, he agreed that the series was racist, and said that "it was really irresponsible of us to put it out".Sarita Malik Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television, Thousand Oaks, California: Sage, 2002, p.97 In what was termed 'Snatch of the Day' by the press in 1978, Grade attempted the acquisition of exclusive screening rights to Football League matches. Previously the BBC had held the more desirable rights, but the Office of Fair Trading intervened, and Grade's purchase was revoked. The package of recorded highlights on Saturday evenings now alternates each season between ITV and the BBC.Tim Bradford When Saturday Comes, London: Penguin, 2005, pp. 882–83
Also in 1978, Grade managed to place under contract the entertainer Bruce Forsyth who had helped the BBC to dominate the Saturday evening television ratings through the decade via The Generation Game series. His new vehicle was titled Bruce Forsyth's Big Night and was intended to feature all his talents in one programme lasting two hours. The budget was £2million for a fourteen-week run.Jules Stenson Brucie: The Biography of Sir Bruce Forsyth, London: John Blake Publishing, p.88 The new series was considered a disaster, with the press turning against the host, but did achieve an initial audience of 14 million.Bruce Forsyth Bruce: The Autobiography, London: Pan, 2001, p.198 The Generation Game, with new host Larry Grayson, managed to achieve a larger audience.Joe Moran Armchair Nation: An intimate history of Britain in front of the TV, London: Profile Books, 2013, p.195 LWT's Big Night was not recommissioned.
Grade announced at a press conference in May 1979 that LWT had secured a contract with a production company formed by television dramatist Dennis Potter and his producer Kenith Trodd.John R. Cook Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998, pp. 102–3 The corporate association proved short-lived, with both sides having insufficient experience for budgeting drama shot on film, and was terminated by Grade in the summer of 1980.Cook Dennis Potter, pp. 194–97 Only three of what had been projected as six filmed plays by Potter were shot and screened.Humphrey Carpenter Dennis Potter, London: Faber, 1999 , p.394 Grade though, was directly involved with some of the playwright's later commissions.
Grade approved production of The Professionals and initiated the long-running arts' programme The South Bank Show.
In 1981, Grade left LWT to begin a two-year period as the president of Embassy Television in the United States. In The Times he was quoted as stating, "It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; it is, if you like, a gamble I want to take". His pay rose from £32,000 to $250,000 per annum.Janine Gibson and Maggie Brown "Amid the suits, a man who stands out", The Guardian, 3 April 2004 During this time he was largely involved in developing and selling sitcoms in this period: "When you read 30 or 40 comedy scripts a week, you get a bit barking." Grade also produced a series for the only time in his career, a nine-part adaptation of Kane and Abel, the novel by Jeffrey Archer. In a Jewish Chronicle interview with Michael Freedland in 2011, Grade said he had "missed public service broadcasting, real drama, news, current affairs".
BBC In early summer 1984, Bill Cotton recruited Grade for BBC Television, where he became controller of BBC 1 on 1 September 1984,Top job for Grade at BBC 1: The Times (London, England), Thursday, 31 May 1984Early-evening ratings war likely if BBC replaces 'Sixty Minutes. Hewson, David The Times (London, England), Wednesday, 6 June 1984, p.3. taking, as he told Michael Freedland, "the biggest pay cut in history"; his salary went down from $500,000, excluding large bonuses, to £37,000 a year. Later he became director of programmes in 1986, and managing director designate in 1987, before leaving the BBC at the end of 1987. His three-year tenure as a BBC controller was controversial.
Grade cancelled the rights to screen Dallas while fighting Thames Television for the rights to the series (although this decision was subsequently reversed). He cut short the expensive serialisation of The Tripods trilogy, written by John Christopher, because he was dissatisfied with the ratings it had achieved after two series. He also considered cancelling the sitcom Blackadder, judging the first series to be unfunny and costly.Mark Lewisohn , BBC Guide to Comedy (c.2003) via the Wayback Machine
Grade agreed to commission Dennis Potter's serial The Singing Detective (1986) after a brief meeting with Jonathan Powell, then the BBC's head of drama. It was a highlight of this period, but came under criticism from Mary Whitehouse and the tabloid press for its content.Carpenetr Dennis Potter, pp. 455–56 Referring to the depiction of an illicit sexual encounter in episode three, Grade said: "There are very few people in television drama that you are prepared to trust with scenes like this. But Dennis Potter is one of them".Cited in Cook Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen, p.242
During his time as controller, Grade was also responsible for purchasing the Australian soap opera Neighbours for BBC1's new daytime schedule; it debuted on British television on 27 October 1986. He was also responsible for repeating Neighbours, at first exclusively an afternoon programme, in a later timeslot (on the advice of his daughter, Alison, who was annoyed that she could not watch it because she was at school). This proved to be a successful scheduling decision, with audiences in excess of 18 million for the new 5.35 pm broadcasts. Other successes during Grade's tenure included the debut of soap operas EastEnders and Howards' Way in 1985 and the hospital drama Casualty in 1986. He was also praised by Bob Geldof for agreeing to broadcast the charity rock concert Live Aid for 24 hours.
In November 1984 he decided to end screening beauty pageants, stating, "I believe these contests no longer merit national air time. They are an anachronism in this day and age of equality and verging on the offensive."
Doctor Who controversy Grade announced on 27 February 1985 that season 23 of Doctor Who, which was scheduled to be transmitted from January to March 1986, would be postponed as he had decided that the programme's budget would be better spent on other drama productions. What became an 18-month hiatus for Doctor Who (the series did not resume transmission until September 1986) prompted a strong reaction from viewers. Grade was also noted for his strong dislike of the series, such as in an interview in 2004, where he said: "I thought it was horrible, awful. I thought it was so outdated. It was just a little show for a few pointy head Doctor Who fans. It was also very violent and it had lost its magic". In an appearance on the BBC's Room 101 in 2002, Grade chose the series as one of his hates, criticised its production values and said that he had little interest in, or sympathy for, science fiction.
Eric Saward, the script editor of Doctor Who at the time of its suspension, responded to Grade's criticism a few years later. In his view, Grade's comments were unfair because he was in the position to allocate more resources to the programme and thus improve its quality.During the audio commentary of the 2008 DVD of the Doctor Who serial Warriors of the Deep. Actress Katy Manning, who had portrayed a companion of Jon Pertwee's Doctor, praised Grade's treatment of the series on the DVD commentary for The Mind of Evil (1971). In her view, Grade "was actually doing the right thing", and she credited the long break prior to 2005 with rejuvenating the series.Voice-over commentary on the BBC DVD "The Mind of Evil" (1971, 2013)
The decision in the autumn of 1986 that season 24 of Doctor Who could only happen on the condition that Colin Baker was removed from the title role has been attributed to Grade, with him reportedly describing Baker's portrayal as "absolutely God-awful". It has also been suggested that Grade was influenced by a romantic relationship with Baker's ex-wife, Liza Goddard. In 2022, Grade denied both that the decision to fire Baker was his and any personal relationship with Goddard. Baker's immediate predecessor in the role, Peter Davison, argued in 2018 that the decision to dismiss the actor was more to do with the executives wanting to get rid of the series' producer, John Nathan-Turner, saying: "I was upset about what happened, really – because, first of all, it wasn't to do with Colin, I know that. It was to do with other issues. The power structure in the BBC had changed and they didn't want John Nathan-Turner around is the truth of it."
Following the end of the first series of the revived Doctor Who in 2005, Grade wrote a letter to Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, congratulating all involved in the production on its success, signing-off with "PS never dreamed I would ever write this. Must be going soft!" In an interview for Radio Times in 2012, Grade commented: "From clunky Daleks that couldn't go up and down stairs to the filmic qualities today of Doctor Who, it's a transformation... The show still leaves me cold, but I admire it, which I never did before."
Channel 4