Talk:Michael Grade

Mind Your Language
Grade has repeatedly claimed he removed this programme from production when he was able to do so. The dates of the programme and the period when Grade had direct responsibility for it are tight enough to question whether he actually commissioned it - as the article alleges. Philip Cross 20:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

References and Sources
This article urgently needs its facts cited with references and sources as it is a Biography of a living person. BreathingMeat 20:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

(Potentially libellous statements removed as per WP:BLP)  J Rawle  (Talk) 11:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Requested move
Michael Grade → Michael Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth.
 * No clear consensus for move after a reasonable time for discussion.  SilkTork  *YES! 21:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Known for his career in the television industry and not as a peer. Also no disambiguation is required for this article title.--Lucy-marie (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. WP:NCPEER is quite clear. This chap is no longer wholly or exclusively known by his pre-peerage nomenclature. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  15:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose He is known for long career in television, not for being a recently-appointed Conservative peer. See here. If he does become known as "Lord Grade" in the future, then this can be revisited. At the moment, however, this move request seems very premature. The Celestial City (talk) 18:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. No chance he will be known as "Lord Grade" as Lew Grade already has that name. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  18:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose for now. Known for his TV career. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Former businessmen who have been ennobled are almost invariably known by their titles thereafter. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - This is not a Crystal Ball and what they are currently known is what we have to take as the current commonly used name. If in the future the individual is known regularly by their ennobled title then that would be grounds to change the article title. To though say, it is expected that the names they are known by will change is not how things work on Wikipeida.--Lucy-marie (talk) 17:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Alma mater

 * What is the significance of listing both "education" and "alma mater"? Secondary school (high school) and university (college)? Both seem to be secondary schools: surely a mistake?
 * I would assume that he left Stowe, possibly at 16, and then moved to St Dunstan's College. tehblooguy (talk) 13:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Doctor Who
This section keeps getting out of hand, and is still longer than the entire section above on the other issues from Michael Grade's first period at the BBC. I would have to concede that it cannot reasonably be cut any further, and there is clearly a need for other sections to be expanded.

I would also agree that his response to Colin Baker in the role is an unfortunate way to end this section of the article. The passage on the revived series though, should be as short as possible. As Chairman of the Board of Governors he would have had no say in the development of the new series, and the decision to revive the series would have come before he was appointed as Chairman. The letter to Mark Thompson is too similar to the comment from the Radio Timesinterview to be included, and is really superfluous. We don't need Grade to admit, more directly than in the 2012 comment, that he was wrong about Doctor Who. Philip Cross (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You would "also agree". With whom? Nobody has raised this and it is well-acknowledged that Grade personally intervened to have Baker removed from the role, which was a highly exceptional intervention for a BBC One controller to make in the casting decisions of one of his producers. This is why that should be noted. That Grade described the series as horrible and awful is also notable and different to saying it was outdated and clunky, therefore your edit there is not justified on the grounds of repetition. His congratulations to the production team on the new series was again deemed newsworthy and an unusual step for a now Chairman to take, and his comments of congratulations are distinct from what he put in the Radio Times interview about why he had changed his mind. This has been on the page since 2006, everybody else has been happy with it and you have now decided to remove it. That's why I've put it back in. Rodericksilly (talk) 11:37, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The mention of Baker being sacked with Grade's intervention has not been removed. You need a source to say more, such as it was "highly unusual". As you have cut the Room 101 passage, your reversal of my cut to the preceding comment is justifiable. As the later comments date only from 2012, the survival of the earlier quote since 2006 is not relevant. Grade's comments in 2005 apply more to Doctor Who rather than Michael Grade, which is why they would have been thought newsworthy. "Leaves me cold" in the 2012 piece says more about Grade, the subject of this article, than Doctor Who, which isn't.


 * While their is no transcript to cite for Grade's comments on Room 101, they can be verified very easily. As Eric Saward would most likely have been responding to them specifically, they cannot be removed entirely without making a nonsense of his comments. For one thing, Grade does not mention the "production values" issue in 2004. Philip Cross (talk) 11:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The fact that Grade made the effort to congratulate the new series production team by writing to the Director-General is worth noting. Grade's comment on "cardboard things clonking on the floor" does not refer to anything in particular in Doctor Who, and I've seen all the stories that were broadcast under his tenure as Controller. He just appears to have been quickly grasping at something to say to ridicule the show in the context of a comedy programme. He was clearly making a comment on the production values with that quote and also by comparing it unfavourably with Star Wars, Close Encounters and ET.Rodericksilly (talk) 13:22, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * You have only come up with the same two words again: "worth noting." The comment you follow it with, for those reading this exchange, is part of the Room 101 episode. Th passage "worth noting" is just on opportunity for you, as a hardcore Doctor Who fan, to gloat over Grade's change of mind. Philip Cross (talk) 13:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Nope, wrong again. I never added that section in the first place but I think its presence is justified. I'm not such a "hardcore" Doctor Who fan as you assume, I don't even watch the modern series and I don't personally care much what Grade thinks about it. Please don't make assumptions about me. Plus, I might add I've noticed you have contributed to many Doctor Who related articles. Rodericksilly (talk) 14:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Pinewood & Shepperton
The following sentence is problematic:


 * Grade left Channel 4 in 1997 to head First Leisure Corporation, He departed two years later, following a substantial internal re-structuring, to return to the media industry as chairman of the new Pinewood and Shepperton Film Studios Company.

The problem is according to our WP articles on these two studios they did not merge until 2001 yet the above statement implies they merged in 1999. We need to clean this up somehow. Anybody have a source? Koala Tea Of Mercy ( KTOM's Articulations &amp; Invigilations ) 13:28, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Relationship ?
Is there any (sourced) truth to the assertion that at the time Grade was the BBC executive over Doctor Who his girlfriend was Colin Baker's ex-wife? I read this on a comment in a Who forum and if provable it would add a wealth of context on Grade's intense dislike for and firing of the 6th Doctor. Koala Tea Of Mercy ( KTOM's Articulations &amp; Invigilations ) 13:41, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

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