John Gau, who has died aged 83, had a 40-year career in television current affairs and documentaries that was notable for his time as a producer on Panorama, a tumultuous period as the BBC’s head of current affairs and then as a leading light in the new age of independent production heralded by the launch of Channel 4.
On Panorama from 1969 to 1973 he formed a fruitful producer-reporter partnership with Julian Pettifer. Their early programmes raised moral questions about the huge cost of the moon landings, assessed the British army’s role in Northern Ireland and, in 1973, revealed what life was really like for citizens of Ukraine, in advance of a first visit to the Soviet Union by British royals since the 1917 revolution.
The pair had previously worked together on another BBC current affairs series, 24 Hours, which Gau produced from 1965 to 1969, and Pettifer was a presenter during Gau’s tenures as deputy editor of Midweek (1973-75) and editor of Nationwide (1975-78).
Later, as head of BBC television’s current affairs group (1978-81), Gau was embroiled in battles with his own bosses and various politicians. Jitters over a 1980 Panorama programme asking whether all potential transplant donors were correctly pronounced dead led Ian Trethowan, the BBC’s director-general – lobbied by transplant surgeons – to say to Gau: “I think you should pull the programme.” Gau replied: “You pull it if you want to. I think it’s a perfectly good show,” and it went ahead.
A year earlier, more seriously, Gau was at the centre of one of the BBC’s biggest political storms, when the Troubles in Northern Ireland were at their height. While making a Panorama episode examining the IRA’s history, the reporter Jeremy Paxman and producer David Darlow received a tip-off to drive to the County Tyrone village of Carrickmore, where they were able to film IRA members carrying out “road checks” on motorists – staged as a display of power.
The footage was never screened, but some newspapers accused the BBC of colluding with “the enemy” and the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, told the corporation to “put their house in order”.
Gau knew that the proposed programme had, in accordance with BBC rules on the coverage of Northern Ireland, been “referred up” the management structure to Richard Francis, the director of news and current affairs, although it emerged that the Northern Ireland controller, James Hawthorne, had not been told.
Roger Bolton, Panorama’s editor, was sacked – but reinstated after solid backing from the National Union of Journalists and Gau.
Writing to the BBC’s deputy director of television, Robin Scott, Gau had argued that the BBC he had joined in the 1960s had been “fiercely independent, journalistically courageous and steadfastly loyal to its staff” – and that “the handling of the Carrickmore incident seems to me to call these virtues into question”. Like Bolton, Gau was officially reprimanded, but held on to his job.
Setting up his own company, John Gau Productions, in 1981, Gau later enjoyed more than 20 years as an independent producer. The opportunity arose with the 1982 launch of Channel 4, which revolutionised British broadcasting by commissioning programmes rather than making its own.
His output as an executive producer or hands-on producer for the television newbie was prolific, from The Front Line (1983), on war-torn El Salvador, to The Living Body (1984-85), a 26-part examination of how humans work, to celebrations of human endurance such as On Angel’s Wings (1985), about a hang-glider flight over Venezuela’s spectacular Angel Falls, and 90 Degrees South (1987), following Monica Kristensen in the footsteps of Roald Amundsen.
The new era of commissioning independence also allowed Gau to make documentaries for his former employer, the BBC. They included Deep Into the Blue Holes (1983), a World About Us episode about an underwater expedition beneath the Bahamas, and histories of the military (Soldiers, 1985), aviation (Reaching for the Skies, 1988) and motor racing (The Power and the Glory, 1991).
The silver screen was in the spotlight for Lights, Camera, Action: A Century of Cinema (1996) on ITV, while Electric Money (2001), made for PBS in the US, charted the digital revolution’s effect on financial activities.
Gau was born in London to South African parents, Nan Munro, an actor, and her husband, William Gau, a civil engineer who died in action during the second world war. His mother then married the author Rayne Kruger, who eventually left her for the cookery writer Prue Leith.
After attending Haileybury in Hertfordshire, he studied classics and modern languages at Trinity Hall Cambridge before moving on to the University of Wisconsin, where he became involved in campus television. He joined the BBC as an assistant film editor in 1963 and within two years was a producer.
After setting up John Gau Productions with his wife, the actor Susan Tebbs, whom he had married in 1966, he was approached by the Labour party to produce its political broadcasts after Neil Kinnock became leader in 1983.
Four years later, with the Chariots of Fire director Hugh Hudson, Gau – left-leaning privately, but impartial in his documentaries and current affairs programmes– concentrated its election broadcasts on Kinnock’s passion and affable personality, and featured the music of Brahms.
The first was dubbed Kinnock: the Movie, and boosted his approval rating, although Labour ultimately failed to beat the Tories.
From 1988 to 1990 Gau was director of programmes at British Satellite Broadcasting, before it merged with Sky. Appointed a CBE in 1989, he chaired the Independent Programme Producers Association (1983-86) and the Royal Television Society (1987-91) and was a director of Channel 4 (1984-88).
He is survived by his wife and their children, William and Chris.
• John Glen Mackay Gau, television producer, born 25 March 1940; died 3 March 2024
