My brother, the journalist and broadcaster Mike Chaney, who has died aged 93, introduced Newsbeat to BBC Radio 1, edited the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and set up BBC Radio Norfolk.
As editor of Today from 1976, he steered the programme through turbulent times with flair and made an early attempt to make the programme less London-centred by opening a Manchester studio. His style, though, was controversial, and when his time at Today came to an end in 1979, Mike took on the challenge of setting up the BBC’s new Radio Norfolk, where his personal qualities and understanding of his audience made it a great success.
Mike was born in London, the elder son of Stan Chaney, a building society manager, and Lily (nee Baker) and was educated at Oxted grammar in Surrey. His life – like that of many of his generation – was shaped by his experiences of the second world war. His national service with the RAF, where bright young men were encouraged towards educational self-improvement, sparked his fire and led him to study journalism at Regent Street Polytechnic (now part of the University of Westminster).
In the early 1950s he embarked on his journalistic career, starting on small regional newspapers, progressing to larger ones, then to the northern editions of the national papers, and eventually Fleet Street with the News Chronicle.
A two-year teaching assignment in Africa with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (1957-59) helped him land a job with the BBC World Service, but a divorce from his first wife, Diana (nee Emptage), and marriage to Frances Bernard in 1964 meant that he had two families to support. So began a period of intensive and hectic work for several national newspapers as well as the BBC where, in 1967, he joined a team with the Home Service (later Radio 4) that focused his interest in politics, law and current affairs.
He moved briefly from Radio 4 in 1973 to create Newsbeat for Radio 1, where he introduced an engaging presentational news style to interest young people. Back at Radio 4, in 1976, his Newsbeat success brought him the full editorship of the Today programme.
Mike finally retired in 1995, but was still active in Puddletown, Dorset, where he lived with his third wife, Annie (nee Edwards), for 27 years. Among other things he led a successful protest to save the village library, and campaigned for (and helped to run) a NeighbourCar scheme to provide transport to and from the local surgery.
Mike was a man of great charm and charisma. The company of his extended family in gatherings both large and small gave him enormous pleasure.
He is survived by Annie, whom he married in 1993, by Caroline and Richard, the children from his marriage to Diana, and Rose, Ama, Isla and Ceri, the children from his marriage to Frances, who died in 2004, and by me. Another daughter, Kate, from his first marriage, predeceased him.
