A former newspaperman Fox began his career in print soon after demobilisation, having served in the parachute regiment during the Second World War. He soon gravitated towards broadcast journalism, initially hired as a scriptwriter for Pathé News in 1947. He joined the BBC in 1950, scripting newsreels and working as editor on programmes such as Sportsview from 1953. A year later he created the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year show, an annual review of sporting achievement that is now a major event in the British television calendar.
In 1961 he moved on to the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama, and two years later was made Head of Public Affairs at the corporation. By 1965 he was Head of Current Affairs and served as Controller of BBC1 from 1967-73, during which time he commissioned some of the best loved prime time television hits of the period, shows including The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game and Parkinson which all debuted in 1971.
Fox went to Yorkshire Television in 1973, serving as chairman of the company from 1977. He variously worked with Channel Four and Thames Television during this time, and from 1986 to 1988 served as chairman of ITN before returning to the Corporation as managing director for three years from 1988. Honoured with a CBE in 1985, Fox became a BAFTA Fellow in 1990 and was knighted in 1991.
In later years he also returned to print journalism, writing a sports column for The Daily Telegraph among others, as well as occupying several board level positions connected to the horse racing industry. And, though he had withdrawn from front line broadcasting in the 1990s he remained a shrewd and perceptive commentator on the state of a medium that he had helped to shape during his long and influential career.
Read the Telegraph on Sir Paul Fox
