Alan Yentob obituary

The Guardian

5 days ago

Alan Yentob, who has died aged 78, had serious claims to being the most influential broadcaster in Britain over the last 50 years. There are very few successful shows on the BBC – with whom he spent his entire career – which did not bear his influence as producer, commissioner or presenter. They range through high culture to showbiz, from the Arena and Imagine arts documentaries to the more demotic Noel's House Party, Strictly Come Dancing, Holby City and Ballykissangel, taking in Have I Got News for You, Bake Off and Absolutely Fabulous on the way.
It was a formidable track record, leading to a series of executive positions within the corporation, which almost inevitably created critics at the BBC and, more poisonously, the conservative press. Its continuous denigration of him and through him the larger target of the BBC itself, ultimately contributed to his resignation following his outside chairmanship of the Kids Company charity, which collapsed in a welter of debt in 2015.
A famously disorganised figure, more concerned with programme ideas than administration, always on the lookout to cultivate and befriend the powerful, and seemingly with a kind of grandiosity, he was easy to mock.
Liz Forgan, the former chair of the Scott Trust, owners of the Guardian, who worked with Yentob at the BBC, told the paper in 2016: 'He is ludicrously vain ... is unbelievably snobbish and lives a life which is completely inappropriate and silly. You ask yourself does he deliver value sufficiently to justify all the nonsenses? And yes he does, you know, by miles.'
More insidiously, his friend the novelist Hanif Kureishi noted in the same article: 'A posh Jew poncing around at the public expense: what's not to hate?' In fact, the supposed extravagance, on examination showed Yentob underclaimed on expenses. There were dark tinges in the mock reversal of his name to Botney, first in Private Eye, then within the BBC, where he was also parodied by some as the Oily Levantine.
'I always looked as if I was having too much fun,' he told the Guardian in 2016. 'It is very good I said that because it's true. But they have certainly done their fucking best to make it feel as bad as possible.' No one ever doubted Yentob's devotion to the arts however, or to public service broadcasting by the BBC.
The son of Iraqi-Jewish parents, Alan was born with his twin brother Robert in Stepney, east London, to Flora (nee Khazam) and Isaac, known as Kay, Yentob, a former drinks salesman who worked for his brother-in-law's textile business and moved his family to Didsbury, in Manchester. They moved back south again a decade later, to an apartment on Park Lane.
The sons were sent as boarders to the King's school, Ely. Alan spent a year at Grenoble University before taking a law degree at Leeds University and, on graduation in 1968 was the only non-Oxbridge entrant to that year's BBC traineeship scheme.
His ascent through the ranks as a producer was rapid: from World Service radio at Bush House to a producer and director on television arts features. On the flagship series Omnibus he made his name in 1975 with a documentary on David Bowie called Cracked Actor. It was the first time the BBC had devoted an entire programme to a pop star, and it was rebroadcast in the Imagine series in 2013.
A hallmark of Yentob's approach to programmes was his embrace of a wide definition of culture. His meticulous approach to production values, working laboriously through the night on films, sleeping in his office, making his ideas work, emphasised his commitment.
He was also prepared, as he gained influence and status within the department, to commission whole programmes on one personality or art form: a three-hour film on Orson Welles was one such in 1982, a live broadcast of Verdi's opera Stiffelio from Covent Garden in 1993 was another. There were also separate programmes such as an interview with the playwright Arthur Miller and a paean to the Ford Cortina.
Inevitably the stars became friends – Mel Brooks and his wife Anne Bancroft were godparents to his children – and the old arts magazine format embracing portmanteau subjects faded away.
There were costume dramas he commissioned too: Pride and Prejudice (1995) was one, Life on Mars (2006-07) another, and in 2002 there was a whole new channel: CBeebies.
The award-winning success of such programmes – Baftas three years running (1982-84) for the Arena documentaries of which he was editor, programming supremo of the year at the Broadcast Production Awards in 1997 – was accompanied by progress up the Corporation ladder: head of music and arts (1985-88), controller of BBC Two (1988-93), BBC One (1993-96), director of programmes (1996-97), director of television (1997-2000), director of drama, entertainment and children's programmes (2000-04) and creative director (2004-15), in charge of 2,000 people and an annual budget of £500m.
The only promotion he lacked was director general – he was too disorganised for that. Increasingly instead he appeared in front of the camera as a presenter and interviewer, creating his public profile. This all made him a hugely powerful figure within the BBC and broadcasting generally, shaping and personalising television's evolving approach to the arts.
He could undoubtedly have made more money elsewhere, in commercial broadcasting or in the US, but he chose to stay within the corporation, very well remunerated but not stratospherically paid.
Then came the Kids Company affair. Yentob first became involved in 1997 with the organisation helping deprived inner-city children in London, run by the charismatic psychotherapist Camila Batmanghelidjh. It was the artistic work the charity was doing with the children that appealed to him, and he became chair of trustees from 2003 as it expanded exponentially before collapsing in 2015 as funding was reduced. It had had regular cash crises before the government pulled the plug on its support.
A parliamentary inquiry asserted that the charity had been run on wishful thinking: Yentob responded that it was not 'boxtickable' – 'it was not run like other places, so you had to believe in it.' Critics said that his involvement was similar to the way he ran arts at the BBC: celebrity supporters and heedless use of funding.
The tabloid press, which had previously lionised Batmanghelidjh, turned on the organisation and on Yentob personally. It did not help that the BBC was negotiating the renewal of its charter at the time.
Anthony Wall, Arena's editor, told the Guardian later: 'I am not saying Alan hasn't pissed people off over the years, but there was something else going on as well. There are people who are going to profit hugely from the destruction of the BBC.' Yentob had made himself an easy target.
He was accused of paying insufficient regard to the running of the charity and also, within the BBC, of pressurising colleagues at Newsnight to downplay its problems. He appeared outside the Today programme office as Batmanghelidjh was being interviewed, and it was these incidents that ultimately led to his resignation in December 2015. Yentob was subsequently cleared of the charges following an investigation by the BBC Trust and also later of overseeing maladministration at the charity.
He may have been off-staff but he did not cease to work for the BBC, presenting and producing documentaries for the Imagine series from 2003 up to the end of his life. Last year he was appointed CBE. Among his other involvements was the board of directors of Riverside Studios, the British Film Institute production board and chairmanship of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (2002-10).
Yentob's partner for 40 years was the documentary producer Philippa Walker, with whom he had two children, Jacob and Bella. The couple married in 2020. She and their children survive him.
Alan Yentob, broadcaster and television executive, born 11 March 1947, died 24 May 2025