TV current affairs producer and campaigner whose ideas on broadcasting paved the way for the founding of Channel 4Anthony Smith, who has died aged 83, was the brains behind the creation of Channel 4, which he envisaged as a new kind of publicly owned television channel for turning fresh ideas and minority views into programmes made by independent producers. At a time of just three channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV, he dedicated himself in the 1970s to media reform, and lobbied for an open broadcasting authority to run a vacant fourth channel, in a
Democratic opening up of the airwaves, unleashing “an imp in the mechanism”.
The Guardian acted as a facilitator, publishing two lengthy articles by Smith in 1972 and 1974 as he refined the concept. He then became director of the
British Film Institute (1979-88), well positioned to influence the final decision. Although holding centre-left political views, he won support from Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 government, by meeting Keith Joseph, one of the prime minister’s most influential allies, and recasting the argument as a way of introducing competition and enterprise into broadcasting, while keeping public service dominant. Smith was a thinking person, combining unobtrusive sharpness with persistence: his personal charm and hospitality softened a serious intensity.