Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A television executive and member of a famous showbiz dynasty, he was controller of BBC One and chief executive of Channel 4.
On the island
Eight records
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:03You've never made a television programme in your life. Can this be true?
I can't claim to have. No, I've sort of executive produced a few things, a big mini series in America, but that's about all. My skills are entrepreneurial really, and I'm sort of an imposario rather than a coalface person.
Presenter asks
3:19Has being a Grade, a Winogradsky, been something very special for you?
Yes, very much. I'm very proud of the family and the achievements of the family. I think that's what motivates me. I think uh with three brothers, my father and Lou and Bernie, as successful as they are and have been, you do feel driven to follow in their footsteps. Uh and anything less, in my terms, would be failure. That's what drives me really. Mediocrity is unacceptable. Absolutely, yes, it would be miserable.
Presenter asks
7:03Was the threat of being duffed up anything to do with being Jewish too?
That came later but uh I never experienced that at my prep school. But when I got to public school when I was thirteen I went to Stowe. the public school was chosen for me and I sort of sailed in on sort of very good uh academic results and was quite shocked when I got there really at the degree of anti Semitism and bullying that went on there.
The keepsakes
The book
Kenneth Grahame
I wanted something funny to remind me of Home... I'd like uh Alan Bennett reading on tape of The Wind in the Willows... But I'd hear Alan's voice and I he's somebody I admire enormously. I think he's one of the greatest living English writers. And he brings so much to that book.
The luxury
World Sports News (delivered in a bottle per week)
I have to have the sports results. ... I have to have the World Sports News somehow.
Presenter asks
17:36Why did you turn your back on security, power, good salary to go to London Weekend Television?
I was very frustrated as an agent. You were always in the middle being pulled one way and the other. Either your client didn't want to do what you knew was good for them or the people who were buying wouldn't buy what you knew was good for them. And you were forever it was the most frustrating job in the world, and I think I was too thin skinned to do it. I got too emotionally involved with the clients.
Presenter asks
22:40Why did you leave the BBC when you were about to become managing director of BBC Television?
I could see that there were two drawbacks to the job in the future. One was that it was going to be about managing resources, just a real management job, nothing to do with the programmes. And also, I think there was just too much politics at the BBC at the time.
Presenter asks
29:50Is the price you pay for being a workaholic or simply for being Michael Grade that your private life has been in the tabloids?
It's the price you pay for being willing to talk to the press and for using your own personality to promote your work.
“Yes, very much. I'm very proud of the family and the achievements of the family. I think that's what motivates me. I think uh with three brothers, my father and Lou and Bernie, as successful as they are and have been, you do feel driven to follow in their footsteps. Uh and anything less, in my terms, would be failure. That's what drives me really.”
“That came later but uh I never experienced that at my prep school. But when I got to public school when I was thirteen I went to Stowe. the public school was chosen for me and I sort of sailed in on sort of very good uh academic results and was quite shocked when I got there really at the degree of anti Semitism and bullying that went on there.”
“Maybe I will one day, I don't know. I I There's a sense in which I I don't like looking back. I'm a I'm a forward-looking person and uh I think I get that from the rest of the family. I don't see the point in stirring all that up.”
“I was very frustrated as an agent. You were always in the middle being pulled one way and the other. Either your client didn't want to do what you knew was good for them or the people who were buying wouldn't buy what you knew was good for them. And you were forever it was the most frustrating job in the world, and I think I was too thin skinned to do it. I got too emotionally involved with the clients.”
“I could see that there were two drawbacks to the job in the future. One was that it was going to be about managing resources, just a real management job, nothing to do with the programmes. And also, I think there was just too much politics at the BBC at the time.”
“It's the price you pay for being willing to talk to the press and for using your own personality to promote your work.”