This is taken from The Times, July 5, 2007:

Alan Chivers
BBC producer and pioneer of outside broadcasting who brought the Coronation and great sporting events to TV screens

Alan Chivers was BBC television’s leading outside broadcast producer, responsible for events from the Queen’s Coronation in 1953 to the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980. During the 1966 World Cup in England he was the executive producer of the BBC/ITV consortium responsible for the TV coverage.

But Chivers was more than the man for the big occasion. He produced a remarkable number of firsts: the first live outside broadcast from a submarine, the first from the Queen Mary, the first live mountain climb from Snowdonia and then the memorable weekend of live broadcasts from the Old Man of Hoy. Nothing like it had happened before, and Chivers won a special Bafta award for his pioneering efforts.

As well as bringing big sporting events, such as FA Cup finals and racing from Ascot, to TV screens, Chivers became a specialist in live theatre relays from the West End, including the Brian Rix farces.

Alan Edward Chivers was born in London in 1918 and educated at Linden School and at St John’s College, Clap-ham. For two years after school he worked at the Brixton Rep, playing small parts and studying stage management. From 1937 to 1939 he trained and worked as a civilian pilot. He joined the RAF at the beginning of the war and was, as he modestly put it, “engaged in flying duties with Fighter Command”. He was a Battle of Britain pilot, occasionally released to take part in flying sequences in films dealing with aviation. During one
film he met Lesley Osmond, an actress and former Windmill dancer, who became his wife.

He was invalided out of the RAF with the rank of squadron leader in 1945 and joined BBC Radio as an assistant in recorded programmes. By 1948 he was involved in the early TV outside broadcasts, first at Alexandra Palace and then at Wembley, in the years when new standards of programming, engineering and invention were set.

There was a brief flirtation with ITV in 1959 when he helped to launch World of Sport, ITV’s answer to the BBC’s Grandstand, but he returned to the BBC in 1962, as a producer, then a senior producer and, for an unhappy spell, as head of events.

He was best at the sharp end of making live programmes. He worked closely and smoothly with such leading commentators as Richard Dimbleby, Wynford Vaughan Thomas, David Coleman and Kenneth Wolstenholme.

His experience as a fighter pilot ensured that nothing in a live television broadcast fazed him. In an industry beset by factions and fierce rivalry, Chivers stood out as a man not only well liked but much admired – not least for his habit of driving his open sports car in all weathers. He was the model of a television producer and won three Bafta awards.

After he retired from the BBC in 1980 – two years after the normal retirement age – Chivers moved to Cornwall. His wife died in 1987, and their only son died in 1982.

Alan Chivers, television producer, was born on April 24, 1918. He died on June 30, 2007, aged 89