Sir Jeremy Isaacs

Early life

He was born in Glasgow, the son of a jeweller and a GP and grew up in Hillhead. He was educated at the independent Glasgow Academy and Merton College, Oxford. He did his National Service in the Highland Light Infantry.

Television career

Isaacs began a long career in television in 1958 by joining Granada Television as a producer. At Granada he was involved in creating acclaimed and long running series World in Action and What the Papers Say. He has worked for the BBC (on Panorama)) in the 1960s and was the overall producer for the acclaimed 26-episode series The World at War for Thames Television in 1973. He was Director of Programmes for Thames between 1974 and 1978. He then produced Ireland: A Television History (1981) for the BBC.

Channel 4

Isaacs was the founding chief executive of Channel 4 between 1981 and 1987, overseeing its crucial launch period and setting the channel's distinctive style. At that time, the channel was much more serious in tone and dedicated to minority cultural tastes than it is now, though such programmes as The Tube had a place on the network from the start. The channel commissioned Michael Elliott's production of King Lear with Laurence Olivier in the title role and Isaacs re-commissioned a number of programmes from his time at Granada including What the Papers Say. Despite a general liberal atmosphere, a few commissioned programmes such as Ken Loach's A Question of Leadership were blocked from being screened.

When handing over responsibility for running the channel to Michael Grade, Isaacs threatened to throttle him if he betrayed the trust placed in him to respect the channel's remit.

Royal Opera House

After leaving Channel 4, and failing to be appointed Director General of the BBC in 1987, Isaacs became General Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a role he fulfilled until 1996. This was a difficult period for the ROH, which was not helped by the broadcast of the revealing The House (1996) documentary series on BBC2.

Ted Turner sought out Isaacs (confusing him with the actor Jeremy Irons) for the role of executive producer for his 1998 24-episode Cold War series.

Between 1997 and 2000 Isaacs was president of the Royal Television Society. He is currently chairman of Sky Arts.

From 1990 to 1998 Isaacs acted as interviewer in a revival of the BBC series Face to Face; John Freeman had filled this role in the original 1959-62 run.

Source: Wikipedia