Bryan Cowgill

After Cowgill was demobbed in 1947, he rejoined the Evening Post as a reporter and feature writer, and then for five years he edited a local weekly paper in Clitheroe. He joined the BBC in 1955 as a production assistant in Outside Broadcasting.

In 1958, Cowgill devised the Saturday afternoon sports showcase Grandstand, which was an immediate success and ran for nearly half a century. In 1963, he was promoted to Head of Sport. In this capacity, he introduced the football highlights programme Match of the Day in 1964. During his tenure the BBC covered an increasing number of ambitious sporting events, including organising extensive coverage as host broadcaster of the 1966 World Cup and showing coverage live by satellite from Mexico of both the 1968 Summer Olympics and 1970 World Cup.

In 1973, after a decade in charge of the sports department of BBC Television, Cowgill was promoted to Controller of BBC1, the corporation's premier television network.

In 1977, Cowgill accepted an offer to leave the BBC after over twenty years to join Thames Television as Managing Director. In 1984, Cowgill, in a foretaste of changes to come within the industry, successfully resisted demands by the ACTT union for additional payments to use new technology, by maintaining a reduced service while the other ITV contractors met demands for a 20% rise in pay.^[2]

During Cowgill's tenure at Thames he tried to acquire the popular 1980s soap opera Dallas, which had previously been associated with the BBC, abandoning a gentleman's agreement not to poach purchased programming. Other ITV companies refused to show Dallas if Thames retained it, and this led to Cowgill's resignation in 1985 at the age of 58.^[2]

In June 2006, Cowgill said that "in the context of more than 200 channels" he was in favour of the abolition of the television licence that finances the BBC.^[3]

Cowgill's autobiography, Mr Action Replay, was published in 2006.^[4]

• Obituary in The Stage