Culture reporter
Alan Yentob, the long-serving BBC arts broadcaster and documentary-maker, has died aged 78.
Yentob profiled and interviewed a wide range of important cultural and creative figures over the years, including David Bowie, Charles Saatchi, Maya Angelou and Grayson Perry, for TV series such as Omnibus, Arena and Imagine.
He also served as controller of BBC One and Two, and the organisation’s creative director and head of music and arts during a long and varied career.
Paying tribute to her late husband, Philippa Walker described Yentob as “curious, funny, annoying, late and creative in every cell of his body” and added that he was “the kindest of men”.
BBC director-general Tim Davie called him a “creative force and cultural visionary” who championed “originality, risk-taking and artistic ambition”.
He added: “To work with Alan was to be inspired and encouraged to think bigger. He had a rare gift for identifying talent and lifting others up – a mentor and champion to so many across the worlds of television, film and theatre.
“Above all, Alan was a true original. His passion wasn’t performative – it was personal. He believed in the power of culture to enrich, challenge and connect us.”
Yentob was known for his connections in the entertainment industry, often befriending his famous film subjects who included music stars Jay-Z and Beyoncé, actors and filmmakers Orson Welles and Mel Brooks, and author Salman Rushdie.
Synonymous with the BBC, Yentob was seen by viewers engaging in an arm wrestle with Rushdie while listening to opera in a scene taken from W1A – a sitcom which satirised life at the corporation.
Yentob’s famous 1975 Omnibus feature, Cracked Actor, about David Bowie, showed the drug-affected star opening up to him in the back of a limousine at an “intensely creative time”, the filmmaker later recalled, but also at the singer’s most “fragile and exhausted”.
Yentob became controller of BBC Two in 1988, making him one of the youngest channel controllers in the corporation’s history.
He oversaw a popular and influential period for the channel, with commissions such as hit sitcom Absolutely Fabulous – where his name was dropped into the dialogue of one episode as an in-joke
Other shows launched during his tenure included The Late Show and Have I Got News for You.
Yentob’s success in the role saw him promoted to controller of BBC One from 1993 to 1997, before a stint as BBC television’s overall director of programmes.
He was announced as the corporation’s creative director in 2004, a role he filled for more than a decade. But he continued to step in front of the camera to front more Imagine programmes, including the final episode of that series, a profile of comedic duo French & Saunders.
His commissions also included a TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and children’s channels CBBC and CBeebies.
Actress and comedian Dawn French shared a picture of her and Jennifer Saunders with the late broadcaster on X, saying: “We’ve lost a tip top chap.”
“Our advocate from the start,” she added.
In a post on social media platform Bluesky, pop group The Pet Shop Boys described Yentob as “a legend in British TV, responsible for some of the BBC’s finest programmes”.
The pop duo were the subject of one of Yentob’s Imagine documentaries.
BBC Radio 4 Today presenter Amol Rajan paid tribute, saying: “He was such a unique and kind man: an improbable impresario from unlikely origins who became a towering figure in the culture of post-war Britain.
“Modern art never had a more loyal ally. His shows were always brilliant, often masterpieces, sometimes seminal. So much of Britain’s best TV over five decades came via his desk. That was public Alan. In private, he was magnetic, zealous, and very funny, with a mesmerising voice and mischievous chuckle.”
Yentob’s long and successful career at the BBC was not without controversy.
In 2015, he resigned from his role as the BBC’s creative director, having faced scrutiny for his role, as chairman, in the financial mismanagement of the charity Kids Company.
Yentob said the speculation over his conduct – which included claims he had tried to influence the BBC coverage of the charity’s demise – had been “proving a serious distraction” when the BBC was in “particularly challenging times”.
But in the years that followed, he continued to make many more programmes for the broadcaster, and was subsequently appointed a CBE in 2024 for services to the arts and media.
He is survived by his wife, TV producer Philippa Walker, and their two children.
