This is taken from The Guardian:

Former BBC press chief dies at 67

Dominic Timms
Tuesday January 31, 2006

Keith Samuel, the BBC's former controller of press and publicity, has died aged 67.

Mr Samuel spent 26 years at the BBC before retiring in 1998, handling publicity for the 1972 Munich Olympics, the marriage of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips a year later and the launch of BBC daytime.

BBC colleagues expressed their grief at the news of his death, describing him as "a giant of television publicity".

"We are deeply saddened at this news," said the BBC head of press, Donald Steel. "He will be remembered first and foremost as a champion of programme makers and channel controllers and, above all, the viewers.

"He was a wonderful man who cared deeply about the BBC and all it stood for. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time.

After working as a reporter in his home town of Brighton and a 12-year spell with the ITV company Southern Television, Mr Samuel joined the BBC in 1972 as a TV publicity officer.

Following the appointment of Michael Grade as BBC1 controller, Mr Samuel became chief publicity officer for BBC Television in 1985, working closely on the promotion of a reshaped BBC1 schedule.

The following year he took charge of BBC Television's press and publicity, where his responsibilities included the launch of Britain's first daytime TV service on BBC1, the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh and the 50th birthday of BBC Television.

His career at the BBC spanned five director generals - Charles Curran, Ian Trethowan, Alasdair Milne, Michael Checkland and John Birt.

He also served as press and publicity adviser to three successive managing directors of BBC Television - Bill Cotton, Sir Paul Fox and Will Wyatt.

On the creation of BBC Broadcast in 1996 he became head of the integrated press and publicity teams representing BBC Television, Radio, Education, Regional Broadcasting and the new digital channels.

Samuel contributed articles to many newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Broadcast. He was elected to the Council of the Royal Television Society in 1992 and in 1996 became the chair of the Society's Press & Public Relations Committee.

His other passion was music. As a jazz trombonist he broadcast on the BBC and local radio and made recordings with the Southampton-based Gateway Jazz B. Under the pen name of Sam Edwards, he was the jazz critic for the Southern Daily Echo in Southampton for many years.

Mr Samuel leaves a wife and two children.

This is taken from The Daily Telegraph:

Keith Samuel
(Filed: 09/03/2006)

Keith Samuel, who died on January 30 aged 66, was the BBC's most successful head of publicity, occupying a unique place in the esteem of his BBC masters and the journalists with whom he frequently tangled.

Samuel's value to his bosses at BBC Television was that he knew almost everything going on inside that labyrinthine organisation and much about newspapers, so that he was able to warn of tricky situations lying in wait.

When EastEnders was increased from two to three weekly episodes, the departing producer concocted a lurid plot involving a pub siege, gunplay and threats of sexual violence. Samuel alone realised that such a scenario before the 9pm watershed would give the press a field day; some heavy rewriting was ordered. Grade, now BBC chairman, tried to take Samuel, whom he considered "a model chief press officer", to Channel 4 when he became chief executive. But Samuel, who had been 26 years with the Corporation, stayed at Television Centre as Controller and a member of the BBC Board of Management.

His first chore each day was to visit senior executives with cuttings from the papers. If one had a meeting with journalists, Samuel would write his speech, and say: "Here's what they're going to ask, and here's what you tell them." He stayed late at work on the ground that an uncleared in-tray was "an unexploded hand grenade with the pin out".

Keith Samuel was born on October 11 1939. On leaving school he joined the Brighton and Hove Herald, and spent 12 years with Southern Television at Southampton. In 1972 he was recruited to the BBC as publicity officer for sport and outside programmes, then rose to head of television publicity. He organised the publicity for general elections and the 60th anniversary of BBC Television in 1986. He instituted spectacular programme launches, ran a campaign to raise the licence fee, and did a spell as a producer on Radio 4's Today.

Sometimes his determination that the Beeb should always be presented in a favourable light led to clashes with journalists.

A former Daily Telegraph critic, Richard Last, once spent half an hour trying to persuade Samuel to make a particular preview available, driving Samuel to shout down the phone: "Will you stop telling me how to do my bloody job!" Both receivers were slammed down, but the incident was forgotten when they met two days later.

At one time weighing 18 stone, Samuel was known, with his carrying voice, as "Boomer", which became a term of endearment.

Away from the BBC, Samuel played trombone with jazz musicians such as Nat Gonella, George Chisholm, Kenny Ball and Kenny Baker, as well as the Gateway band in Southampton.

With his wife, Judy, who survives him with their two sons, he paid a number of visits to New Orleans, where he once made an impromptu appearance with an all-female quartet in a jazz bar.