Brian Tesler, executive who left the BBC to become a leading light of commercial television
The TelegraphBrian Tesler, who has died aged 95, was a formidable and influential figure in the development of ITV, running London Weekend Television during the 1980s after a promising creative career as a young producer at the BBC. His BBC colleagues despaired of him; none of them thought ITV would work, because they thought the network offered only vulgar programmes, commercial breaks and decidedly patchy coverage in London, the Midlands and the North. But within a decade Tesler had become ITV’s chief threat to the BBC, hailed as “TV’s new whizz-kid” and renowned inside the industry as “Brian Hustler”. No one in the rough, demanding world of independent television seems to have a bad word to say about him.” One admirer was John Birt, a future – and controversial – director-general of the BBC.
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