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 advertising, ...

executive, who spent much of his broadcasting career working for

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

, 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 Bournemouth () is a coastal resort town in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area of Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the town had a population of 183,491, making it the largest town in Dorset. It is situated on the English ...

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 newsr ...

'' 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 sport. By the early 1960s he had been promoted to Editor of ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined i ...

'' 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 John F. Kennedy 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'' 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, ser ...

'', ''Bruce Forsyth and the'' ''

Generation Game ''The Generation Game'' is a British game show produced by the BBC in which four teams of two people from the same family, but different generations, compete to win prizes. The game There are eight competitors, hence the catchphrase "Let's me ...

'' 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, writ ...

Later career

Ward Thomas brought in Fox as Head of Programmes of Yorkshire Television (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 third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

'' 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 Bryan Cowgill (27 May 1927 – 14 July 2008) was a British television executive. He was Head of Sport for BBC Television from 1963 to 1973, Controller of BBC1 from 1973 to 1977, and Managing Director of Thames Television from 1977 to 1985. He has ...

, who had been a former colleague at the BBC. Whilst at YTV, Fox was prominent in representing the managerial view in the

industrial dispute Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the In ...

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 in 1985 and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

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 h ...

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 , t ...

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 in 1991, and the

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

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