Norman Collins

Norman Collins (3 October 1907 – 6 September 1982) was a British writer, and later a radio and television executive, who became one of the major figures behind the establishment of the Independent Television (ITV) network in the UK. This was the first organisation to break the BBC’s broadcasting monopoly when it began transmitting in 1955.

Early career in publishing, the press and the BBC

Collins began his career as an editorial assistant at the Oxford University Press in London. He left around 1930, apparently after a dispute over his low salary, and went to work under Robert Lynd as a Literary Editor on the London News Chronicle newspaper. Meanwhile he wrote novels, publishing several successful works such as London Belongs to Me (which was later filmed) in the 1930s and 40s. After 1935 he worked in broadcasting as a producer for BBC Radio. In 1946 he was appointed the Controller of the Light Programme, the BBC’s more populist, entertainment-based radio service which had grown out of the BBC Forces Programme first established to entertain allied troops, but which had also become hugely popular with domestic audiences, during the Second World War.