Anthony Pragnell was one of the key figures in British independent television. As secretary of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) from 1955 and its deputy director-general from 1961 until 1983, he influenced the system for a longer period than any of its senior officers.
Pragnell came to the authority from the Civil Service. After attending the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in West London he had entered the Estate Duty Office in 1939 as an examiner. After his call up in 1942 he spent the war as a navigator, mainly in Lancasters, in Bomber Command. He was wounded during a raid on Leipzig in early 1944 when his aircraft was attacked by fighters. In June that year he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on completion of the full tour of operations. At the beginning of 1945 Pragnell was posted to the Pathfinder Force; by VE-Day he had completed 29 operations.
On return to civilian life he became an assistant principal in the General Post Office. The passing of the Television Act 1954 meant that the members of the authority appointed to oversee the new system found their role to be at the same time more and less executive than that of the BBC governors. They had to design the institutions governing the television channel paid for from advertising revenue; they had to create a new transmitter network to cover the country; they had to arrange for as much competition in the new system as practicable; and they had to take responsibility for exacting programme standards.
Pragnell, by now qualified as a lawyer, was appointed secretary to the new authority and played an important part in its development under the chairman, Sir Kenneth Clark, and the directorgeneral, Sir Robert Fraser.
Among the many problems that Pragnell had to try to resolve was advertising. This was the first time that government tackled the public regulation of commercial advertisements. As he wrote in British Television Advertising: “Reality has shown that the savage beast of advertising which it was once feared would stalk through our living rooms can be domesticated.”
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The authority decided at an early stage to appoint as many contractors as there were economically viable television coverage areas, with the exception of London, programme responsibility for which had to be split between weekdays and weekends. The identification of these coverage areas was one of the jobs assigned to Pragnell, by 1961 promoted to deputy director-general of administrative services. The selection of contractors was also his responsibility.
Once the system had been established the question of a second service arose.The design of Channel 4 was a challenge: to devise a format that would encourage innovative programming for minority audiences which could nonetheless rely on a steady stream of funding. This was achieved by making the ITV contractors corporately responsible, paying a percentage of their advertising revenue to the channel. The imaginative design and implementation of the new channel owed much to the small team at the ITA (which in 1972 became the Independent Broadcasting Authority), of which Pragnell was the kingpin.
On his retirement from the authority in 1983, Pragnell was invited to become a visiting Fellow of the European Institute for the Media, which had just been founded by the European Cultural Foundation of Amsterdam and the University of Manchester with the support of Greater Manchester Council. The institute’s governing statute identified three objectives: the provision of a forum for the discussion of media aims and policies; the development of appropriate media policies in Europe; and the promotion of the use of the media to develop a better understanding of the European tradition shared by citizens of Europe.
The first report that Pragnell wrote for the institute was published in 1985 under the title of Television in Europe: Quality and Values in a Time of Change. The initiative came from a number of smaller European countries which were concerned at the effect of European culture and values of showing television programmes from abroad, and most particularly from North America. The report examined ways in which programme movements could be encouraged among European countries with a view to reducing their reliance on imports from the United States.
In 1987 the European Cultural Foundation and the institute jointly decided to appoint a task force to examine the manner in which television was structured to serve the interests of individual European countries. They invited a group of experienced men and women with substantial television experience “to consider and report upon the future structure and content of television receivable in more than one country by terrestrial transmission, satellite and cable, both by services originating there and by services receivable from elsewhere”.
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The president of the task force was Valéry Giscard d’ Estaing and the chairman was Giorgio la Malfa, of Italy. Pragnell was one of three advisers and played an important role in drafting the report, which was published as Europe 2000: What Kind of Television? in 1988 and shaped the strategy of the European Commission. In 1993 Pragnell edited Opening up the Media, a volume marking the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the European institute.
In appreciation of his work on European media policy Pragnell was awarded the Emile Noel European Prize for 1987 by the Commission of the European Communities. He was appointed OBE in 1960 and advanced to CBE in 1982. From 1983 until 1988 he was a director of Channel 4 Television.
Pragnell married, in 1955, Theresa Mary Monaghan; she died in 1988. He is survived by Fiona Carter, whom he married in 1996, a daughter and son of his first marriage, and a stepdaughter and stepson.
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Anthony Pragnell, CBE, DFC, broadcasting administrator, was born on February 15, 1921. He died on June 17, 2004, aged 83.