A Very Private Celebrity (33 page)

Gradually, he bought up shares in LWT, encouraged by Peacock’s successor as managing director, Dr Tom Margerison, who saw him as an ally and admired his media savvy. Murdoch’s motives were not just revenge and certainly not philanthropy. He intended to turn the company round and, by July 1970, as he owned or had been offered over a third of the non-voting shares, he had the power to do so. He injected £500,000 of his own money for a seat on the board. He and his team toured the studios, ‘like the Mafia’ said one LWT old hand, demanded changes and installed their own man, Bert Hardy, as director of sales.

It soon became clear that although Murdoch was a non-executive director he was behaving, de facto, as if he was running the company.
When Tom Margerison pointed out to him that he had no right to appear at programme meetings, he stopped attending them but invited the programme bosses round to his house at weekends instead. This was too much for the managing director; he had wanted Murdoch’s support but not his takeover. He complained to chairman Crawley, but the board had lost confidence in Margerison by now so Crawley used this row with Murdoch as an excuse to demand his resignation. A new executive committee was set up to run LWT under Murdoch. This was in February 1971. A few days later, Murdoch announced that LWT could no longer afford Frost’s salary. He must either accept less money or take his talent elsewhere. In under eighteen months, Murdoch’s revenge seemed complete.

By now LWT had become a subject of mockery and vilification in the press. The other ITV companies were circling like sharks waiting for a kill. All sorts of rumours and suggestions reached the ITA. Thames wanted to take over LWT: the other major companies wanted to take over LWT jointly and run it like Independent Television News (ITN): the ITA should take over LWT and control it directly. LWT was obviously in melt down.

The ITA had to act decisively and it did. On 25 February, the new director-general of the ITA, Sir Brian Young, invoked the Television Act. This stated that the authority could intervene if a newspaper proprietor was taking an executive role in a commercial TV company that is ‘leading to results contrary to the public interest’. Further, it disqualified individuals who were ‘not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom’ from being programme contractors. That put an end to Murdoch’s ambitions. The ITA gave LWT just six weeks to get its house in order. In effect, it demanded that LWT must appoint a new managing director and re-apply for its licence. Murdoch went off to Australia in a sulk.
7

The deadline pumped Frost’s adrenaline. Acting with his customary self-assurance he devised a rescue plan. This centred on John Freeman, his original choice as chairman, but before he approached him he had to gather support. First, he contacted the ITA and secured the assurance of Sir Brian Young that he really did want LWT to survive. Then he contacted the three men on the LWT board whose backing was essential if he were to invite Freeman to become the new managing director. Lord Montague was sceptical. Lord Campbell was positive: ‘I thought that John Freeman had the same qualities as Murdoch – he wanted to do what he did as well as it could be done, which is what we needed.’
8
That left Murdoch. His consent was conditional on what proved to be the final casualty on the LWT battlefield: Aidan Crawley had to go.

Frost approached Freeman. They had kept in touch since 1967, mostly through Catherine. Indeed, Frost had attended their final farewell party in New York back in January. By early March, John was in South Africa with Judith Mitchell but when Frost spoke on the phone with Catherine, who was still in hospital recovering from appendicitis, she suggested that John might be open for the LWT job. The timing could not have been better.

Freeman was out of work and knew he ‘had to go out and earn a living. It was quite fun being an ambassador but you don’t get rich on it’. He was fifty-six and as he had never bothered to include wealth management among his many skills, he had few savings. If he remained in the diplomatic service until he was sixty he would have to retire, with less chance then of landing a well-paid job. As it was, LWT was offering a reasonable salary plus a large block of shares. Then of course, the offer fitted his philosophy – a radical challenge in a new job every decade. What the ‘deputy chairman of LWT’ would have done if the company had been riding high in 1971 is speculation. Having already
succeeded in politics, journalism and broadcasting there was not much left. As it was, there was an interesting offer on the table.

First, he imposed his own terms. He wanted absolute authority so he insisted on being both managing director and chairman. Crawley disappeared upstairs to become president, in name only. ‘This is a blow we must bear with equanimity,’ Freeman said drily to Frost.
9
Then he needed the assurance from Murdoch that he would be given a free hand to sort out LWT. Murdoch gave it in a phone call from Australia, but Freeman pressed the point: ‘You do realise that a free hand applies to you as well as to everybody else – I really do want a free hand.’ Murdoch assented. The stage was set for Freeman to enter,
deus ex machina.

All of this begs the question, why did Freeman think he could succeed where the best of the BBC had spectacularly failed? The answer is that basically he did not care whether he succeeded or not provided he did his best. Many adopt a similar rationale but then their feelings get the better of them and they find they do care about failure, to the extent of shying away from the challenge in the first place. This certainly was not Freeman. The essence of his leadership was that he had confidence in his own superb judgement and underneath this lay a cold temperament so that any emotion he may have felt was suppressed. As he put it, he ‘didn’t give a bugger’:

Polite, quietly arrogant, ruthless; that was John Freeman.

Back in South Hill Park, he had left behind a scene of desolation. Cynthia Gomes was at the centre of it:

I asked Cynthia if she knew why the marriage had broken up? By this time in our conversation, over forty years after the events in question, she was virtually in tears:

On 9 March 1971 the appointment of John Freeman as chairman and chief executive of London Weekend Television was announced. His very first job was to move the executive suite of LWT from Old Burlington Street, Mayfair, into the main production offices at Station House, a grim twenty-storey office block in Wembley that overlooked a railway goods yard. No respecter of social status, this probably made no difference to him but it had a morale booster effect on the staff. When the former HM ambassador was seen queuing up in the canteen and saying simply, ‘This is where the work is done’, he was greeted with acclaim. Staff asked about his programme tastes? He was tactful but admitted he was no fan of high camp: ‘The one show I can’t stand is
Come Dancing
.’
12
Within a few weeks he would be presenting LWT’s case to the ITA, on which his staff’s jobs depended.

Freeman’s appointment was seen as a major coup for LWT as well as further proof of Frost’s powers of persuasion. Freeman was already hugely respected in television. He was charismatic, dignified and polite, qualities that in LWT had not been much in evidence. He was the sort of leader who inspires confidence. David Docherty, whose book
Running the Show; 21 Years of London Weekend Television
I gratefully acknowledge, said that Freeman behaved in his thirteen years at LWT like a hero played by James Stewart or Gary Cooper in Frank Capra’s
1930s films like
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
, crossed with Lewis Elliot, the central figure in C. P. Snow’s
Strangers and Brothers.
What he meant was that Freeman seemed a ‘profoundly humane character’ (Frank Capra) and a leader who ‘revelled in command, loved the arts of management, had the strength of will to carry through his ideas but also possessed a stubborn disregard for alternative views’ (C. P. Snow). James Stewart and Gary Cooper, of course, always got their girl, which in Freeman’s case needs to be in the plural.

Journalists were keen to meet ‘the formidable Mr Freeman’, as Ivan Rowan called him in the
Sunday Telegraph
of 14 March 1971. His attempt to discover ‘who he really is’ was as unsuccessful as if the meeting had never taken place:

Derrik Mercer of the
Sunday Times
got a bit closer, sitting opposite the new chief executive in his office: ‘Ruddy, freckled face, blond hair brushed to an immaculate smoothness, graceful hands that he is obviously very proud of, eyes watchful behind heavy rimmed glasses, he looks impressive enough. But what are his qualifications to revive a shaky television company?’
13
He did not get an answer, any more than other journalists. ‘That’s a fair, even interesting question,’ responded Freeman unhelpfully. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson fared no better. He came round to LWT for a television interview and hoped to catch up with his old colleague’s news over lunch. He was told: ‘Mr Freeman sends his apologies but he has gone out for a lunch appointment.’

In early March, the ITA had handed LWT a searching questionnaire. It wanted written answers ‘covering all aspects of the company’s structure and operations: financial, managerial, creative and technical’. In effect this required a re-application for the franchise. It asked the company’s senior executives and board members to assemble at the ITA offices at eleven o’clock on 22 April for a grilling. It was the day of decision. Frost had been assured by Sir Brian Young that the ITA wanted LWT to survive, for the obvious reason that to fail was too terrible to contemplate for ITV; it would have necessitated major re-organisation. Further, the appointment of John Freeman gave the ITA a way out. But the result was not a foregone conclusion.

LWT fielded a team of ten, headed by Freeman and including Murdoch, Lord Campbell and Lord Montague. According to Sir Brian Young, who was sitting across the table from LWT, Freeman was clearly in charge of his board. He answered most of the questions himself; he knew his facts, was clear about the direction in which he wanted to take the company, was committed to public service broadcasting and ‘filled the authority with confidence that their problem child was about to grow up’.

Freeman’s opening statement was an assertion of ideals: ‘LWT still believes in the ideals it presented to the authority in its original application. Indeed we can claim to have fulfilled many and most of the intentions set out.’ It was also an admission of serious failings: ‘Our setbacks have derived from administrative, executive and commercial shortcomings, for which both board and management must accept a due share of responsibility.’
14
The ITA was satisfied. It renewed the contract and expressed pleasure that uncertainty about the future of LWT had been removed. LWT would now enjoy the same security as the other ITV companies throughout the remaining contract period.

It must have been a masterful performance by a man who six weeks
before knew nothing about the television industry or running a company. Further, he had been out of the country for the previous six years and was in the midst of an awful marriage break-up. ‘He was,’ said the
Daily Telegraph
, ‘one of those rare men of parts who seem to be able to do anything better than anybody else.’ No wonder he became bored quickly; even the most demanding job was just too easy.

Freeman was at his best leading a team to present evidence before a committee. His army chief-of-staff training came to the fore. For a start, he was a great believer in preparation or, as the army puts it, ‘prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance’. At LWT he would make a practice of assembling the executive directors in his office for a thorough dress rehearsal before facing the LWT board or the IBA. Then he would field all the questions himself before handing over to, say, the director of entertainment, in order to give him precious seconds to prepare his answer: prosaic but effective. Then, of course, his manner was anything but prosaic – a charismatic presence and a voice that was always polite but demanded to be heard.