Ian McIntyre (9 December 1931 – 19 April 2014) was a British

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Radio producer, journalist, broadcaster and author. who was Controller of

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

from 1976 to 1978 and then Controller of

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

between 1978 and 1987.Constable & Robinson publishers' mini biography
/ref> After joining the

in 1957 after

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

, he presented and produced a number of influential current affairs programmes, most notably ''

Analysis Analysis (: analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (38 ...

'' and ''At Home and Abroad''. After his retirement from Radio 3 in 1987, he became associate editor of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' and has written a number of biographical books.

Early life

Ian McIntyre attended Prescot Grammar School in

Prescot Prescot is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, England. It lies about to the east of Liverpool city centre. At the 2001 Census, the civil parish population was 11,184 (5,265 males, 5,919 femal ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, then read Modern Languages at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Union; his contentious style of chairmanship led to the formal vote of thanks at his retirement debate being unprecedentedly opposed (see below).Dogfight: The Transatlantic Battle Over Airbus
/ref> After graduating from Cambridge in 1953 McIntyre spent a postgraduate year at the

College of Europe The College of Europe (; ; ) is a post-graduate institute of European studies with three campuses in Bruges, Belgium; Warsaw, Poland; and Tirana, Albania. The College of Europe in Bruges was founded in 1949 as a result of the 1948 Congress of ...

Bruges Bruges ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is in the northwest of the country, and is the sixth most populous city in the country. The area of the whole city amoun ...

, Belgium, followed by

in the Intelligence Corps in

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

. In February 1957 he joined the

as a producer in the Topical Talks Unit, initially working on a twice-weekly current affairs magazine programme ''At Home and Abroad''. After two years he was made Editor of ''At Home and Abroad'', which he did for a year. He was then moved to become a course organiser at the BBC Training School, but after a year he left to join the

Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) to supervise the creation of " Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ...

(ITA), though he only stayed there a short time. McIntyre spent much of the 1960s working at the Conservative Central Office in Scotland, and stood unsuccessfully as a member of parliament against

David Steel David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood (born 31 March 1938) is a retired Scottish politician. Elected as Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (UK Parliament constituency), Roxb ...

.Bournemouth University BBC Radio 4 Analysis Archive Project
BBC Analysis mini biography
/ref>

BBC career

''Analysis''

Ian McIntyre returned to the BBC as a freelancer making documentaries around the world, initially for Radio 3. At the tail end of the 1960s, his old friend and colleague

Tony Whitby Anthony Charles Whitby (19 November 1929 – 25 February 1975) was a British BBC Radio producer and television current affairs editor who was Controller of BBC Radio 4 from 1970 to 1975. Early life and education Whitby was born in Mere, Wil ...

– then controller of Radio 4 – asked him to present a new series of current affairs programmes. McIntyre stated in 1999 that Tony Whitby proposed a remit to provide "serious current affairs broadcasting...that...should be a sort of demonstration of good faith to the listener that there were going to be serious things done". The brief of the programme was to "make them challenging, make them interesting, and make them amusing if you can". Thus in 1970 Ian McIntyre became the founder presenter of ''

''.

Radio 4

In 1976 Ian McIntyre was appointed Controller of

. According to BBC producer Simon Elmes, he gained the nickname "

Mack the Knife "Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" () is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama ''The Threepenny Opera'' (). The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld n ...

" due to his programme of cuts and abrasive style of governance, described by producer Piers Plowright as "ruthless". At one meeting, the head of radio drama Ronald Mason was said to have become so infuriated that he "threw his chair across the room and stalked off." As part of the cuts, McIntyre halved the length of '' PM'' and the '' Today Programme'', in the latter case filling the spare air time with the short-lived lighter breakfast news programme '' Up to the Hour''.Gillian Reynolds,
Change for the worse at Radio 4
, ''

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

'', 25 January 2006 In 1978 he commissioned Fritz Spiegl to produce the Radio 4 UK Theme, an arrangement of traditional British melodies to signify Radio 4 as a service which, from its move from medium wave to 1500 metres/200 kiloHertz long wave on 23 November 1978, would for the first time broadcast a unified service to the whole United Kingdom (i.e. without the regional opt-outs which it had inherited from the old Home Service in 1967).

Radio 3

McIntyre was moved sideways to become controller of Radio 3 in 1978. According to his colleague,

Howard Newby Sir Howard Joseph Newby (born 10 December 1947) is a British sociologist. He was appointed Chancellor (education)#Vice-chancellor, vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2008 and retired in December 2014. He was vice-chancellor of t ...

, this was "to create smoother waters at Radio 4". He remained at Radio 3 for nine years. During his tenure, relations with several departments, especially the Music Division became uncomfortable; financial cuts at the BBC hit Radio 3 hard in 1980 and an internal paper recommended the disbandment of several of the BBC orchestras. Industrial action by musicians delayed the start of

the Proms The BBC Proms is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. Robert Newman founded The Proms in 1895. Since 1927, the ...

after redundancies in the Music Division. In 1987 a decision was taken to merge the positions of Controller, Music (held by John Drummond who had also been running the Proms), and Controller, Radio 3 (held by McIntyre). Drummond was appointed and McIntyre left the BBC shortly afterwards.

Later life

After leaving the BBC Ian McIntyre authored a number of biographical books including ''

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...

: The Life and Times of the Royal Academy's First President'', ''The Expense of Glory: A Life of John Reith'', ''Dirt and Deity: A Life of

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

'', '' Hester: The remarkable life of Dr Johnson's "Dear Mistress"'' and a biography of 18th century actor

David Garrick David Garrick (19 February 1716 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, Actor-manager, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil a ...

. He died at the age of 82 on 19 April 2014.

Publications

Books

* ''Proud Doers: Israel After Twenty Years'',

, 1968, * ''Dogfight: The Transatlantic Battle Over Airbus'',

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG) was an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which was part of ABC-Clio. Since 2021, ABC-Clio and its suite of imprints, including GPG, are collectively imprints of B ...

, 1992, * ''The Expense of Glory: Life of John Reith'',

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, 1994, * ''Dirt & Deity: A Life of Robert Burns'',

, 1995, * ''Garrick'',

Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fictio ...

, 1999, * ''Robert Burns: A Life'', Welcome Rain Publishers, 2001, * ''Joshua Reynolds: The Life and Times of the First President of the Royal Academy'', Penguin/Allen Lane, 2003, * ''Hester: The remarkable life of Dr Johnson's 'Dear Mistress,

Constable & Robinson Constable & Robinson Ltd. is an imprint of Little, Brown which publishes fiction and non-fiction books and ebooks. History Constable & Co. was founded in 1795 by Archibald Constable, and became the publisher of works by Sir Walter Scott. In ...

, 2008, * ''Robert Burns: A Life'' (revised edition),

, 2009,

Articles

* Johnson and Garrick: the Ninth Annual Johnson Society Lecture * Book review: In the highest degree odious – A W Brian SimpsonThe masseuse as national threat
– ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 2 January 1993

References

;Bibliography *Carpenter, Humphrey, ''The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, 1946–1996'', London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996 *Elmes, Simon, ''And Now on Radio 4'', London: Arrow Books, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:McIntyre, Ian 1931 births 2014 deaths Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge BBC Radio 3 controllers BBC Radio 4 controllers BBC radio producers British writers College of Europe alumni People from Banchory Presidents of the Cambridge Union People educated at Prescot Grammar School