Alan Yentob Has Died

en.wikipedia.org

10 points·edward··6 comments

Back from the days when the BBC was a huge part of British society and culture. Listeners and viewers knew the names of the Directors and comedians could make gently mocking jokes at their expense, and we understood and laughed along.

Nowadays I don't even know how many channels the BBC has, radio or TV. Britain and the BBC seem to have grown apart and now it's almost just another commercial broadcaster. It's remarkable, even terrifying, how society has changed in 30 years.

Can anyone tl;dr who this is and why he is particularly relevant to him?

I just perused his Wikipedia page and just seems like one of many bbc figures. Perhaps with a bit of scandal but nothing too intense.

Some of the TV programmes he brought into being are very significant for a UK audience of a certain age (Arena for me). If the ones mentioned in the Wikipedia article don't resonate, there isn't much that will be significant for you.

I remember him as a high level BBC executive in charge of programming, but I believe he was a presenter for a long time before that, concentrating on documentaries and journalistic pieces, particularly on the arts. He had a reputation of being very good at what he did, and I believe the period he was in charge is seen as a bit of a golden era for the BBC, especially for those not from the classical Oxbridge background.

This is some of his work

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2010s_British_documen...

Wow, amazing career, huge influence. Saw Cracked Actor some years ago in the ICA and it had not aged.

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