Sir David Nicholas, who has died aged 92, was a pioneering television journalist who became editor of ITN when ITV’s news provider was at the height of its popularity – and widely regarded as superior to its BBC rival. In 1977, the year in which he was promoted to the role, the report of Lord (Noel) Annan’s committee on the future of broadcasting declared: “We subscribe to the generally held view that ITN has the edge over BBC news.”
Nicholas’s enterprise was instrumental in helping the commercial TV news service achieve this position after it had started in 1955 with a mission to get away from the BBC’s “stuffy” presentation style. Live news events were his specialism. An early example during his time as deputy editor was the 1966 general election night results programme, which he produced after visiting the US to observe television coverage of the presidential election two years earlier. He was determined to be first with the results, constantly updating computer technology, and the clearest with analysis, which was ensured with Alastair Burnet as presenter, demonstrating his encyclopedic political knowledge and unflappability.
Nicholas continued as producer of election night programmes until 1987, even after becoming ITN editor. For coverage of the second 1974 poll results, he commissioned a new computer in response to the BBC’s Swingometer. This followed his experience with a studio psephologist earlier in the year.
In the director’s gallery, he picked up the phone and demanded, politely: “For Christ’s sake, tell me who’s winning!” The reply came back: “I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you who isn’t losing.”
As a result, Nicholas commissioned the VT 30 from Paul McKee, an ITN computer consultant. Originally developed to show Fair Isle jumper designers how their elaborate patterns would turn out, it instantly displayed graphics with columns of votes rising and falling, depicting the “pattern”.
Another piece of technology introduced for a live event produced by Nicholas helped ITV in its 12-hour, through-the-night coverage of the Apollo 11 space mission in 1969, when the first humans landed on the Moon. Following viewers’ criticism of a previous Apollo flight when studio experts talked over conversation between astronauts and Mission Control in Houston, ITN used a machine called Titlefile, programming information into it using the flight plan and explanations of jargon that could be displayed as on-screen captions.
Two years earlier, Nicholas produced groundbreaking, award-winning coverage of Francis Chichester completing the first solo round-the-world yacht voyage. In the days before portable satellite dishes, Nicholas was determined to transmit live from the Atlantic as Gypsy Moth IV neared Land’s End in May 1967. He chartered an ocean-going yacht with engineers and transmitting equipment on board to send pictures to a “dish” mounted under a twin-engine plane, which would beam them to a GPO receiving station.
When a gale raged and an engine broke down, its crew had to be rescued, but Nicholas swiftly chartered a bigger, stronger vessel, from which Richard Lindley reported live, with Chichester seen behind him sailing towards a hero’s welcome. An ITV special, Home Is the Sailor, followed, winning Nicholas and his fellow producer John Phillips a Bafta special award.
In 1968, Nicholas was passed over for the editor’s job at ITN – which went to Nigel Ryan – but he was given a major role in running the news operation while his superior concentrated on strategy and relations with the ITV companies.
Top of Nicholas’s agenda was News at Ten, launched a year earlier as Britain’s first half-hour daily news programme, with him as producer. He played a key role in shaping it, particularly in the early days when it brought to viewers on-the-spot reporting from war zones and gained a reputation for authority and impartiality.
The job of ITN’s editor and chief executive finally came his way (1977-89). In 1978, Nicholas persuaded Anna Ford to leave the BBC to become News at Ten’s first female newscaster by offering her the additional role of medical correspondent. He also sacked her colleague, Reginald Bosanquet, a year later when his excessive drinking became a liability.
Over the next decade, Nicholas oversaw the introduction of ENG (electronic news gathering), with video replacing film, led ITN’s successful bid to provide Channel 4’s news service on its launch in 1982 and continued to earn great respect for his enthusiasm to be first with the news and for combining serious drama with human stories.
He moved on in 1989 to become chair of ITN, at a time when editorial spending was getting out of control. With a new multi-channel age dawning, he and Burnet personally lobbied the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to include in the 1990 Broadcasting Act the privatisation of ITN to allow it to expand in the free market, with majority control taken from the ITV companies, which had always owned it. This caused bad feeling among their representatives on the ITN board and Burnet resigned, first as a director, then newscaster.
Although Nicholas went along with a board submission requesting that the companies keep two-thirds control, he decided in 1991 – after the act stripped them of majority ownership – to retire several months early.
He was born in Tregaron, Cardiganshire (now Ceredigion), to Elizabeth (nee Williams) and Daniel Nicholas, a bank’s chief cashier, brought up in Glynneath, Glamorgan, and attended Neath grammar school. After graduating in English from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and doing national service in the Army’s education corps (1951-53), Nicholas entered journalism on the Yorkshire Post, then worked on the Daily Telegraph as a subeditor.
He joined ITN in the same capacity in 1960 – at first also doing a weekend shift on the Observer – and worked his way up to chief sub and, in 1963, deputy editor. After leaving, he was a director of Channel 4 (1992-97) and chair of Sports News TV (1996-2003).
The Royal Television Society presented him with its Cyril Bennett award in 1985 and a lifetime achievement award in 2012. He was appointed CBE in 1982 and knighted in 1989.
In 1952, Nicholas married Juliet Davies. She died in 2013. He is survived by their children, Helen and James.
• David Nicholas, television news editor, born 25 January 1930; died 4 June 2022
