{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2017}} {{Use British English|date=December 2017}} '''Stephen Hearst''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} (born '''Stephen Hirshtritt'''; 6 October 1919 – 27 March 2010) was an Austrian-born British television and radio executive.
==Early life and career== Born in Vienna, the son of a dentist who was close to the Mahler family, Hearst had begun to study medicine, but fleeing from the Nazis became imperative after the Anschluss in 1938 had driven him underground because of his Jewish background and anti-fascist activities.<ref name="Telegraph">[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/7545870/Stephen-Hearst.html Obituary: Stephen Hearst], telegraph.co.uk, 1 April 2010</ref> The family settled in Britain, and after a brief period studying horticulture and being interned,<ref name="Leapman">Michael Leapman [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/stephen-hearst-bbc-executive-who-defended-the-corporation-from-attacks-by-thatcherrsquos-government-1975551.html "Stephen Hearst: BBC executive who defended the Corporation from attacks by Thatcher’s government"], ''The Independent'', 18 May 2010</ref> Hearst served in the Pioneer Corps during the war. After demobilisation, he studied history at Brasenose College, Oxford.<ref name="Scotsman">[http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-stephen-hearst-bbc-executive-in-television-and-radio-1-797614 "Obituary: Stephen Hearst, BBC executive in television and radio"], ''The Scotsman'', 4 April 2010</ref>
After working freelance on newsreel scripts, Hearst joined the BBC's staff in 1952,<ref name="Scotsman"/><!-- "trainee" (Guardian); "holiday job" (Scotsman) --> and moving over to documentaries where he continued writing their narration.<ref name="Leapman"/> After two years writing for programmes involving Richard Dimbleby, he was a writer-producer from 1955 to 1965, becoming executive producer of arts' programmes under Huw Wheldon, and then deputy to Humphrey Burton, the first head of BBC music and arts, in 1965.<ref name="Purser">Philip Purser & Leslie Megahey. [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/mar/30/stephen-hearst-obituary "Stephen Hearst obituary"], ''The Guardian'', 30 March 2010</ref>
Hearst was responsible for developing the 'personal view' documentary format with Sir Compton Mackenzie's ''The Glory That Was Greece'' (1959)<ref name="Scotsman"/> and several projects with the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler, this time concerning Ancient Rome, around the same time.<ref>John Wyver [http://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/2013/05/early-archaeology/ "The birthplace of ''Civilisation''"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112225336/http://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/2013/05/early-archaeology/ |date=12 November 2013 }}, Illuminations, 15 May 2013</ref> In 1967 he became head of television arts features and championed this approach leading to the 13 part series' Kenneth Clark's ''Civilisation'' (1969) and Alistair Cooke's ''America'' (1972).<ref name="Purser"/> By the time the latter programme was finally transmitted, Hearst had moved on to the next stage of his BBC career.
==Later life and career== He became Controller of Radio 3 on 1 January 1972,<ref name="Carpenter267">Humphrey Carpenter. ''The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3'', London: Phoenix, 1997 [1996], p.267</ref> and had explicitly stated at his interview the relevance of audience figures, a point which he thought had given him preferment over his main rival, Martin Esslin,<ref name="Carpenter267"/> another Viennese émigré. Hearst was viewed with suspicion as a 'television man' by his new colleagues, and according to producer Philip French had "a degree of contempt" for radio which was "never made absolutely explicit", but did nevertheless create "a relaxed atmosphere" at Radio 3.<ref name="Carpenter267"/>
Hearst clashed with music department colleagues who attempted to resist his toning down of an overtly academic approach to introducing classical music and he came up with the practice of 'themed' evenings or weekends, a policy which still continues, as well as giving titles to concerts.<ref name="Telegraph"/> Simulcasts on radio and television began under Hearst, who was well aware of the poor sound quality television loudspeakers provided at the time.<ref>Daniel Snowman. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wP0fa7bUP0wC&pg=PT110&lpg=PT110 ''The Hitler Emigrés: The Cultural Impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism''], London: Pimlico, 2003 [2002], p.110</ref>
He remained the controller of Radio 3 until 1978, and then joined the BBC's Future Policy Group.<ref name="Scotsman"/> In 1982, he was appointed as the special advisor of the new Director General Alasdair Milne, although Hearst had retired from the post by the time Milne was forced to resign in early 1987. "Public service broadcasting is likely to go down as the greatest British cultural invention of the 20th century", Hearst once wrote.<ref name="Leapman"/> At the end of the 1970s, he became a visiting professor at the University of Edinburgh.<ref name="Telegraph"/><!-- Sources vary as to whether he received his CBE in the 1979 birthday honours or in 1980, --> Stephen Hearst died in London.
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * {{IMDb name|999953}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hearst, Stephen}} Category:1919 births Category:2010 deaths Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh Category:Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford Category:Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom Category:Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:BBC executives Hearst, Stephen Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:Royal Pioneer Corps soldiers