Joe Rigby obituary

My father, Joe Rigby, who has died aged 87, was a working-class Catholic boy from Birmingham. He left school at 15, but rose to be a television executive at Granada Television in Manchester. For 20 years from 1973, he was Granada’s head of programme planning, where he hired, inspired and nurtured the team of scriptwriters who wrote the on-air promotions for programmes. Many of them, including Andy Harries, David Liddiment and Dearbhla Walsh, went on to great success as television producers and directors. Joe was born in Erdington, north of the city centre, to Theresa (nee Byrne) and Charles Rigby, who worked in the family engineering company and as a barman. He had two sisters and two brothers, one of whom, Terence, became a successful actor. The family were evacuated to Upton-upon-Severn in Worcestershire during the second world war. Back in Birmingham Joe’s early life revolved around worship at Erdington Abbey, lessons at the adjoining school and helping to run the youth club. His interest in the media was fired by his national service in the army, spent with Forces Radio in Cologne, Germany. That led to a job at Tyne-Tees TV in Newcastle as a transmission controller. Joe joined Granada in 1964, initially as a transmission controller, moving on to head of presentation, then head of programme planning. One of his early hires was a young man called Jim Grant, now better known as the bestselling author Lee Child, who says Joe was known as the “Fifth Beatle” because of his trendy haircut. In those days, ITV was organised on a regional franchise basis, and Joe loved playing his part in Granada’s role as a defiantly northern company, challenging the “big boys” of Thames and London Weekend TV. His main job as head of planning was to lobby for Granada’s programmes to be given greater prominence on the ITV schedule. He was also an ambassador for the company abroad, meeting the rich and famous at the TV festivals in Cannes and Monte Carlo. He left Granada in 1994 when the company changed direction. Like many others he was saddened by what he saw as a prioritisation of profits before programming. After retiring, Joe lived in Spain for 10 years before coming home to the UK, first to Somerset and finally to Dorchester, in Dorset, where the richness of his voice graced the choir of Holy Trinity RC church. Joe is survived by his wife, Josie (nee Carrick), whom he married in 1965, his three children, Alison, Kate and me, four grandchildren, and by his brother, Patrick, and sister Catherine. Terence and another sister, Caroline, predeceased him.