by Hugh Purcell
Why Frost pinned his hopes on a diplomat who might be out of the country for six years and had no experience of the rapidly evolving commercial television industry, although he had been a celebrated performer for the BBC, we do not know. Probably he would have agreed with Lord Renwick that if the newcomer was of sufficient calibre he would cope as well if not better than the professionals, but only if he was of the highest calibre. In fact, when a desperate David Frost did eventually call on Freeman’s services in March 1971, poor management at LWT had reduced the station to meltdown. Its very survival was at stake. To appreciate the mess that Freeman had to clear up – he said the offices reminded him of a casualty clearing station after a major battle – we need to go back to 1967.
The ‘television team’ that set up LWT in the first place, to use Frost’s stress on the word ‘television’, considered themselves the best in the business because they were the elite of BBC TV departmental heads, led by none other than the director-general-in-waiting of the BBC. They had defected as a group to join the opposition, which says much for the insouciance of Frost, the money on offer and the well-known saying ‘no one is entirely loyal to the BBC’. The reason Frost chose them in opposition to ‘the moguls’ who he implied ran the rest of commercial television, thus pitting the Greeks against the Philistines, as it were, went back to the Pilkington Report of 1962 on the future of the broadcasting services in the UK.
The high-minded writers of the report had been extremely critical of the contention of the commercial TV ‘moguls’ that their job was simply to provide programmes the public wanted to watch: ‘Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste, and end by debauching it.’ Instead, the Pilkington Committee wrote in a succinct and careful sentence, broadcasting ‘should give people the best possible chance of enlarging worthwhile experience’. 2 What better way of doing this, David Frost thought, than by assembling a team of television practitioners from the heads of BBC TV’s children’s, arts, music and comedy departments and placing them under the controller of the main BBC channel, BBC One, the universally admired Michael Peacock? (see Chapter 5). The new team lost no time announcing that their first principles were to show respect for the creative talents of those who made programmes and for those who watched them, and whose differing interests and tastes aspired to new experiences.
This is what the Independent Television Authority (ITA) wanted to hear. The ITA was, as always, in a difficult position. It was a public authority established by Parliament to maintain the standard of programmes provided by a handful of public limited companies, financed largely by advertising and answerable to shareholders. In practice, this meant that the ITA invited ITV companies from different parts of the UK to submit their programme schedules in order to obtain a licence to broadcast for a limited period. The ITA selected the best on offer in a competitive process and then tried to ensure that the successful companies lived up to their submissions. From time to time, in a headmasterly way, the ITA issued guidance as to what it meant by ‘public service broadcasting’. This had to be less stringent, less demanding than the standards expected of the BBC, which, after all, was paid for by a compulsory licence fee. It was a question of where to draw the line. There was bound to be tension between the ITA’s regulatory remit and the commercial needs of ITV companies. From the time Freeman arrived at LWT in 1971 to the time he left in 1984 he challenged basic ITA assumptions, from its awarding of contracts to its definition of public service. That, however, was for the future.
In 1967 the ITA was hugely impressed by the manifesto of David Frost’s new team. It had complained for some time that the standard of children’s, arts, music and comedy programmes on ITV was too low and here were the former heads of those very departments at the BBC promising to lift them. The chairman of the ITA, Lord Hill, wrote: ‘It is an understatement to say that the authority liked this application. It was difficult to resist the thought that here was a group who would bring new thinking, fresh ideas and a lively impetus to weekend broadcasting. It had to have its chance, whatever the repercussions.’3
On 12 June 1967, the ITA took away the franchise for supplying commercial television in the London area at weekends (Friday to Sunday) from Associated Rediffusion and awarded it to what became LWT. ‘Bloody hell,’ thought Frost, ‘we’ve really got to do it now.’ The bid had taken just three months to put together, from start to finish – but that was the easy part.
The new management team gave themselves an effective voice in the running of LWT because they had a substantial equity holding. They saw no reason why, as people who cared about television and made television, this should be otherwise. But they suffered from a handicap familiar later to BBC programme makers who left to set up independent companies in the 1990s, which was that they had no business or legal or personnel background. Neither the chairman, Aidan Crawley, nor Michael Peacock had run a company before. They stuck to the mantra that the quality of the programme was what really mattered, but their weekend schedules in the early days were naive to say the least.
On Saturday evenings, when viewers in the London area wanted to relax, all LWT had to offer was a mixture of ‘Brecht, Britten, some uninspired situation comedies and uninteresting variety programmes’.4 Up against this, a ruthless BBC responded to the challenge by offering its best police series, Dixon of Dock Green, The Val Doonican Show and Match of the Day. Unsurprisingly, audiences in the early months of LWT dropped by 16 per cent from the size of audiences obtained by Associated Rediffusion. This could not be allowed to continue.
The LWT board, composed of business men and investors with non-executive powers, regarded Peacock as impossibly arrogant, spoilt by the BBC and sheltered from economic realities. He resented board members’ interference and dismissed them as ignorant about television. The press saw the scenario of Hard-Faced Business up against Creative Talent, and put like that there was no doubt who would win. On Monday 8 September 1969, Michael Peacock returned from holiday, hoping that his new autumn schedules would rescue the channel. Instead, he was summoned to Aidan Crawley’s office and invited to resign. The prime movers behind this happened to be friends of John Freeman, the banker Lord Montague and the chairman of the New Statesman, Lord Campbell. The Times’ s verdict: ‘For all the splendour of his reputation as a broadcaster, Mr Peacock was in fact running a company that was providing neither the commercial success that had been expected nor the programmes of the quality that had been promised.’5
In early October, department heads resigned in protest. They were mostly the former BBC talent, the LWT heads of drama (Humphrey Burton), entertainment (Frank Muir) and children’s, religious and adult education (Doreen Stephens). It was the end of a brave experiment.
There were three further reasons why the early LWT failed. The faults were not directly those of management but Freeman had to correct them when he arrived. The other ITV companies resented LWT because of its ‘best boy’ status with the ITA, and they had considerable power to undermine it. This was because no one company could fill its schedules entirely with its own programmes so the major companies like Granada, Thames, ATV and LWT were obliged by the ITA to produce a range of programmes that they offered to one another in order to form a network schedule – that is a selection of programmes that were shown by every company. Crucially, it was left to individual companies to choose when to schedule these network programmes. Jealous of LWT’s reputation and wanting to maximise their own audiences, the other companies were known to schedule LWT programmes at unfavourable times in their own regions. They also offered their own best programmes to Thames TV, the weekday supplier in London, despite pleas from LWT to show them at weekends. Worse than that, some companies like ATV in the midlands scheduled against LWT by placing some of their own poor programmes at the weekend so that the inherited audience for LWT output was minimal.
Then there was the economic climate. Commercial TV might have been in its early days ‘a permit to print money’, in
the words of Lord Thomson who founded Scottish Television in the 1950s, but by 1969 after an economic slump and devaluation the printing presses had certainly stopped. It was hard to make a profit. Advertising revenue was down but the government continued to impose a large tax on it. In 1970, LWT actually made a modest profit, nearly £3 million, but this was reduced to a small loss after payment of a levy larger than the profit itself.
Finally, there were the trade unions, obstructive and expensive. LWT was forced to take over Rediffusion’s obsolete studios in Wembley, where the staff, demoralised and suspicious, delayed the start of programme production for two months. Then they pulled the plug on opening night, 2 August 1968, when, ironically, Frank Muir was introducing We Have Ways of Making You Laugh. The Association of Cinematographic and Television Technicians (ACCT) members were responsible. They had claimed, and been given, ‘a golden handshake’ when they left Rediffusion and an enhanced pay packet when they joined LWT the following week. When its members came up against John Freeman a few years later, they would not find the youthful socialist of 1945 who thought trade union power was the gateway to a New Britain; more the Panorama interviewer of 1960 who was prepared ruthlessly to expose trade union malpractice.
The one person who might have resolved this was the most important figure in LWT, David Frost himself. He was barred from membership of the board because he was a star performer; Frost on Friday, Frost on Saturday and Frost on Sunday were the staple output of the channel. Yet he had founded LWT, drawn up the franchise bid before Peacock joined, sat in on board meetings and had a seat on the programme committee. He also ran his own talent company, David Paradine Productions, which packaged shows for LWT and had under contract star entertainers like Tommy Cooper, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. Peacock, understandably, criticised this as a conflict of interest and resented Frost’s salary that was far higher than his own. Then he tried to prevent Frost opening another chat show in the United States, pointing out that this might jeopardise his primary commitment to LWT. He said he had nightmares that Frost might be over the Atlantic when he got his cue to be on air with Frost on Friday. There was deep enmity between the two that did diminish over the years.
On 3 October 1969, Frost interviewed Rupert Murdoch on Frost on Friday. Looking back at the early history of LWT this seems almost as significant an event as Frost writing to Freeman two years earlier. The Australian press baron had just bought the News of the World and this was his introduction to the British public. Taking the News of the World as his evidence, Frost invited the audience to question Murdoch’s values and morality. The Australian press tycoon was not a confident TV performer and he hated the ‘trial by television’. Frost thought it made good viewing and he invited Murdoch for a drink afterwards. Murdoch stormed out, pausing as he left the studios to vow revenge, as legend has it: ‘I’m going to buy this place,’ he declared.6
Gradually, he bought up shares in LWT, encouraged by Peacock’s successor as managing director, Dr Tom Margerison, who saw him as an ally and admired his media savvy. Murdoch’s motives were not just revenge and certainly not philanthropy. He intended to turn the company round and, by July 1970, as he owned or had been offered over a third of the non-voting shares, he had the power to do so. He injected £500,000 of his own money for a seat on the board. He and his team toured the studios, ‘like the Mafia’ said one LWT old hand, demanded changes and installed their own man, Bert Hardy, as director of sales.
It soon became clear that although Murdoch was a non-executive director he was behaving, de facto, as if he was running the company. When Tom Margerison pointed out to him that he had no right to appear at programme meetings, he stopped attending them but invited the programme bosses round to his house at weekends instead. This was too much for the managing director; he had wanted Murdoch’s support but not his takeover. He complained to chairman Crawley, but the board had lost confidence in Margerison by now so Crawley used this row with Murdoch as an excuse to demand his resignation. A new executive committee was set up to run LWT under Murdoch. This was in February 1971. A few days later, Murdoch announced that LWT could no longer afford Frost’s salary. He must either accept less money or take his talent elsewhere. In under eighteen months, Murdoch’s revenge seemed complete.
By now LWT had become a subject of mockery and vilification in the press. The other ITV companies were circling like sharks waiting for a kill. All sorts of rumours and suggestions reached the ITA. Thames wanted to take over LWT: the other major companies wanted to take over LWT jointly and run it like Independent Television News (ITN): the ITA should take over LWT and control it directly. LWT was obviously in melt down.
The ITA had to act decisively and it did. On 25 February, the new director-general of the ITA, Sir Brian Young, invoked the Television Act. This stated that the authority could intervene if a newspaper proprietor was taking an executive role in a commercial TV company that is ‘leading to results contrary to the public interest’. Further, it disqualified individuals who were ‘not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom’ from being programme contractors. That put an end to Murdoch’s ambitions. The ITA gave LWT just six weeks to get its house in order. In effect, it demanded that LWT must appoint a new managing director and re-apply for its licence. Murdoch went off to Australia in a sulk.7
The deadline pumped Frost’s adrenaline. Acting with his customary self-assurance he devised a rescue plan. This centred on John Freeman, his original choice as chairman, but before he approached him he had to gather support. First, he contacted the ITA and secured the assurance of Sir Brian Young that he really did want LWT to survive. Then he contacted the three men on the LWT board whose backing was essential if he were to invite Freeman to become the new managing director. Lord Montague was sceptical. Lord Campbell was positive: ‘I thought that John Freeman had the same qualities as Murdoch – he wanted to do what he did as well as it could be done, which is what we needed.’8 That left Murdoch. His consent was conditional on what proved to be the final casualty on the LWT battlefield: Aidan Crawley had to go.
Frost approached Freeman. They had kept in touch since 1967, mostly through Catherine. Indeed, Frost had attended their final farewell party in New York back in January. By early March, John was in South Africa with Judith Mitchell but when Frost spoke on the phone with Catherine, who was still in hospital recovering from appendicitis, she suggested that John might be open for the LWT job. The timing could not have been better.
Freeman was out of work and knew he ‘had to go out and earn a living. It was quite fun being an ambassador but you don’t get rich on it’. He was fifty-six and as he had never bothered to include wealth management among his many skills, he had few savings. If he remained in the diplomatic service until he was sixty he would have to retire, with less chance then of landing a well-paid job. As it was, LWT was offering a reasonable salary plus a large block of shares. Then of course, the offer fitted his philosophy – a radical challenge in a new job every decade. What the ‘deputy chairman of LWT’ would have done if the company had been riding high in 1971 is speculation. Having already succeeded in politics, journalism and broadcasting there was not much left. As it was, there was an interesting offer on the table.
First, he imposed his own terms. He wanted absolute authority so he insisted on being both managing director and chairman. Crawley disappeared upstairs to become president, in name only. ‘This is a blow we must bear with equanimity,’ Freeman said drily to Frost.9 Then he needed the assurance from Murdoch that he would be given a free hand to sort out LWT. Murdoch gave it in a phone call from Australia, but Freeman pressed the point: ‘You do realise that a free hand applies to you as well as to everybody else – I really do want a free hand.’ Murdoch assented. The stage was set for Freeman to enter, deus ex machina.
All of this begs the question, why did Freeman think he could succeed where the best of the BBC had spectacularly failed? The answer is that basically he did not care whether he succeeded or not provided
he did his best. Many adopt a similar rationale but then their feelings get the better of them and they find they do care about failure, to the extent of shying away from the challenge in the first place. This certainly was not Freeman. The essence of his leadership was that he had confidence in his own superb judgement and underneath this lay a cold temperament so that any emotion he may have felt was suppressed. As he put it, he ‘didn’t give a bugger’:
I had very strong views about how the company should be run, but frankly I didn’t give a bugger whether I stayed or not – I merely had to do the best I could. I intended to run the company my way and to hell with anyone who wanted it done differently. I always treated Murdoch with the respect he commands personally, because he is a very formidable and able man, but I simply did not concede that he had any right to interfere in the day-to-day running of the company.10
Polite, quietly arrogant, ruthless; that was John Freeman.
Back in South Hill Park, he had left behind a scene of desolation. Cynthia Gomes was at the centre of it:
When Mrs Freeman told me that Mr Freeman had left, we both wept. I stayed with her because the children needed me and Catherine needed me very badly. It was a very difficult time. It was very hard for Matthew; he had to be put on a special medication. It was difficult for Tom; Tom’s world came to an end because his dad had gone. And Lucy – it was so hard for her – why had her daddy gone? Had she been naughty or something? And for me, I had been with Lucy from a baby, one day old I handled her. Matthew then was ten years old. So you can imagine how I felt. They were like my own children. I felt a lot for Catherine and like I say my loyalty is to both of them, you know.
