There can’t be many funerals where poems by such radically different poets as Gerard Manley Hopkins, an English Jesuit priest, and Allen Ginsberg, the Beat Buddhist whose verse influenced Bob Dylan, are read as part of the service. But Simon Albury, the former CEO of the RTS, who has died aged 80, was one of a kind and someone who possessed eclectic tastes and passions.

He lived his life in many different circles, drawing from a remarkably diverse group of people to enjoy it with. I was fortunate enough to attend Simon’s 80th birthday in February and was struck by the remarkable variety of the guests’ backgrounds.

They encompassed everyone from the rich and the famous to the secretaries who had worked for him during a career that saw him hobnob with Cabinet ministers and make films about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Millie Jackson, and arresting World in Action documentaries on such difficult subjects as nuclear war and the 1978-1979 “winter of discontent”.

Few can claim to have changed the course of British broadcasting history, but that was what he did when, in 1989, he set up the Campaign for Quality Television. He was concerned that Margaret Thatcher’s plans for selling the licences for regional ITV franchises to the highest bidder risked destroying a carefully calibrated television ecology. This had enabled companies such as Thames, Yorkshire and Granada, particularly Granada, to beat the BBC at its own game.

In a letter published in the Financial Times, Simon wrote: “Money to the Treasury is the Government’s over-­riding concern; and viewers will be offered programmes of lower quality and narrower range.”

Simon persuaded the Thatcher Government to water down its scheme by ensuring that bidders had to pass a quality threshold before the size of their bids was considered. One consequence was that Granada retained its licence despite a higher bid from a rival that failed to pass the quality test.

“He had the heart and soul of a public service broadcaster,” says Peter Bazalgette, the erstwhile ITV Chair who, when he was the RTS President, worked closely with Simon at the Society. “Simon understood what ­public service values were, and he wanted to take those values into the 21st century. He carried on working for them after he left the RTS, with his work on diversity, which he cared very deeply about.

“He was always on the BBC’s case, [and] sometimes he irritated people. In retrospect, I think they realised he was exerting a positive force.… Simon was a mensch, an absolute mensch.” In other words, a person of integrity and honour.

Simon was born in Birmingham to Eileen (nee Lloyd-Jones) and Cyril Albury. His father, who was Jewish, was a jeweller. Those who knew his mother said it was from Eileen that Simon got his flamboyant personality. “She was like Sophie Tucker, a huge character,” recalls one of Simon’s oldest friends.

When Simon was 12, Cyril told his son that, because he was Jewish, he was banned from joining the local golf club. This dark revelation had a profound impact on Simon, who began to see the world in a different light.

He boarded happily in a Jewish house at Clifton College in Bristol. He read sociology at Nottingham and Sussex universities, respectively gaining a BA and MA in the subject. However, it was living in the US in the early 1960s – having won a scholarship to Brandeis University, Massachusetts – that was to have a profound and lasting impact on him.

He loved the energy and culture that the US offered but despised the racism and segregation. In 1963, he joined Martin Luther King Jnr’s seminal civil rights march on Washington. It was at Brandeis that he became a close friend of Ginsberg. He was “a great inspiration, as a writer, as a performer and an activist,” Simon told Andrew Billen for a profile in this magazine.

Later, when Simon had returned to England and was married with a son, David, the scion of the beat generation and confidant of rock royalty would often visit the Albury family home. As Ginsberg encouraged David to write his own verse, David came to regard the elderly poet as a surrogate grandfather.

Simon’s first job in TV came in 1969 when he joined the Granada World in Action team. The same year, he was offered a job at BBC current affairs working on Man Alive and 24 Hours, the precursor to Newsnight. In those days, the department was a deeply competitive place, bristling with machismo.

“At 24 Hours, I had a bottle of kaolin and morph in the filing cabinet… I was a very anxious person,” he confessed to Billen. “I used to think of myself as an average producer on above-average programmes. I now think I was a slightly above-average producer working with incredible producers.”

At the BBC, he made friendships that would last a lifetime, including with such heavyweights as BBC TV reporters Tom Mangold and Tom Bower, later to become a successful biographer.

Rejoining Granada in 1974, he again worked on World In Action and also produced What the Papers Say – essential viewing for anyone fascinated by media. While working as a TV producer, Simon moonlighted as alter ego Sam Smith, hosting Britain’s first black-American gospel music show for London’s Capital Radio.

Simon had always been passionate about music, whether it was opera, jazz, soul, blues or gospel. At Granada, he tried to book Aretha Franklin, who rarely appeared on television and was known to suffer from stage fright. Simon succeeded in getting the Queen of Soul on the phone, but not even his charm could persuade her to record a few songs for British television.

In 1991, Simon was appointed Director of Public Affairs at Meridian, the South of England ITV company that had unseated incumbent TVS in the 1990 franchise round. Simon was key to Meridian’s bid, which made that of TVS look out of date. At one press launch, Meridian was astute enough to have a signer on stage for those in the audiences who were deaf.

He succeeded Michael Bunce as CEO of the RTS in 2000. Over the next decade, he brought a new energy, enthusiasm and vision to the Society. The biannual RTS Cambridge Convention grew in stature, and a new conference, the London Convention, held in the years when Cambridge didn’t take place, was launched.

As well as his prodigious networking and diplomatic skills, Simon brought an international dimension to the RTS as global media players such as Paramount’s Sumner Redstone were booked as speakers at RTS dinners.

For the 2001 Cambridge Convention, Simon promised delegates a mouthwatering lineup of Rupert Murdoch and his arch-rival John Malone. Alas, 9/11 intervened, and both withdrew due to fears about the safety of flying across the Atlantic. However, Simon decided that, 9/11 or not, Cambridge would go ahead despite the absence of two of its star speakers.

For some time, the Society knew that more needed to be done to engage the under-35s in its activities. In 2007, Simon launched RTS Futures, aimed at new graduates and those in the early stages of their career. Today, RTS Futures remains a vital part of the RTS.  

Crucially, Simon ensured that promoting diversity in television was a key part of the Society’s remit. He enrolled Lenny Henry, among others, to spearhead the RTS in promoting a representative UK television sector.

Simon was a keen amateur photographer and could often be seen at RTS events, taking the pictures that would be published in this magazine.

Those who knew him will need no reminder of his abundant kindness. “Personally, he touched a lot of people,” said RTS CEO Theresa Wise. “Many people will say that he helped them in their careers. He was very interested in people and would always look to support them.”

One of Simon’s closest friends was Michael Palin. He encouraged the actor and TV presenter to publish his diaries – and got Palin to talk about them at an RTS event. Speaking at Simon’s funeral, Palin said he was “like an electric current whose default setting was euphoria”.

He is survived by his wife, Phillida, their son, David, and his brother, Robert.

Simon Albury: 9 February 1944 - 2 September 2024