Brian Tesler, (19 February 1929 – 30 October 2024) was a British television entertainment producer and senior executive. His career encompassed British television's post-war evolution from a single-channel BBC to the arrival of multiple terrestrial, satellite and cable channels in the 1990s. After experience in radio presentation with the British Forces Broadcasting Service in the 1940s he began in television as a light entertainment producer and director for BBC Television in 1952, producing mainly panel shows before gaining experience and working his way upwards to producing larger and more significant programmes. He moved to Britain's fledgling independent commercial television service ITV in 1957, joining Associated Television (ATV), who held the franchise for weekends in London. Here he took over ITV's biggest variety show, Sunday Night at the London Palladium.
In 1960 Tesler moved into executive management by becoming Supervisor of Features and Light Entertainment at ABC Weekend TV which provided commercial television for the North of England and the Midlands. Tesler was promoted to be ABC's Programme Controller in 1962 and two years later Director of Programmes. In 1968 he became Director of Programmes at Thames Television which provided weekday programmes in London.
In 1974 Tesler was invited to become Deputy Managing Director of London Weekend Television (LWT) and in 1976 he became LWT's Chief Executive. He resigned in 1990, remaining deputy chairman until his retirement from television in 1994.
Early life Tesler was born in Stepney, east London on 19 February 1929.June Roberts, "Brian Tesler, Director of programmes", Talk of Thames, Thames Television, London, England, September 1969. His Jewish father, David, came to England from Ukraine in 1916, setting up his own hatmaking business. His mother, Esther Hyman, also Jewish, was born in Mile End in East London, her parents having emigrated from Russia in about 1893. Her father was a baker.
Tesler was educated at the Chiswick County School for Boys in West London. As well as its academic excellence and absence of antisemitism Tesler found the extra-curricular activities there, including its drama opportunities, to be to his liking. Tesler loved the music hall and variety shows and was a regular visitor to the major entertainment theatres in London. In later life he credited his youthful enjoyment of all aspects of show business as a valuable self-education which prepared him for his career in light entertainment.
One of the teachers at his school encouraged Tesler's interest in reading, turning it into a love of English literature, and persuaded him that a University of Oxford degree in English was something to which he could aspire. Another teacher, responsible for the school's drama projects, encouraged Tesler's growing interest in the theatre by casting him prominently and successfully in school plays. Tesler won a scholarship for a university place to be taken up after his two-year National Service in the Army.Richard Last, "A profitable Weekend", Daily Telegraph, London, England, 14 June 1976, p9.Max North, "Biggest Break Yet For Brian, The Bright Young Man", Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England, 22 January 1960, p3.
Tesler was mustered in the Royal Artillery in the summer of 1947 but after auditioning was posted to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) radio station in Trieste in Northern Italy as a presenter. He stayed in the BFBS in Trieste until he was demobilised in September 1949.
Tesler's scholarship took him to Exeter College, Oxford in Autumn 1949 to read English Literature and Language. After three years during which there was some concern from his tutors that he was spending more time with show business activities than his studies, he graduated in 1952 with a First Class Honours Degree, with the highest marks in his year, in English. While at Oxford Tesler was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), joined the reporting team on The Isis Magazine,"Pooter: Oxford", Times, London, England, 9 December 1967, p21. sang occasionally with the University Jazz Club and wrote and sold songs with fellow student, the composer Stanley Myers.
BBC Television Tesler joined BBC Television as a trainee Light Entertainment producer in 1952, recruited on a six-months trial. His first television production, which he also directed, was a musical show called Starlight starring Pat Kirkwood singing and dancing to the music of Eric Robinson's orchestra. It was transmitted on 2 January 1953.Kenneth Ullyett, "I'm getting three years is hard", TV Mirror, London, England, 22 December 1956 Tesler followed this with similar programmes starring Joyce Grenfell and the singing duo Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson.
Tesler then rescued a failing panel-game, Down You Go!, which encouraged the BBC to make him producer of a new panel-game for Sunday nights, called Why?. This, however, was "a resounding flop", as Tesler wrote later. It was cancelled after only three shows.Clifford Davis, "Quiz Kid with the crazy touch", Daily Mirror, London, England, 3 December 1953, p2. Despite this failure Tesler was put in charge of the Light Entertainment Department's output of panel games, both finding and producing or supervising them,Edward Bishop, "Television Topics", Birmingham Weekly Post, Birmingham, England, 30 July 1954, p7.L.Marsland Gander, "TV To Try Out 8 Panel Games", Daily Telegraph, London, England. 28 May 1954, p9. which he proceeded to do by introducing Guess My Story, Find the Link, Tall Story Club, One of the Family and The Name's the Same, as well as having overall responsibility for the long-running What's My Line?."Brian Tesler to Join ATV in January", The Stage, London, England, 22 November 1956, p12.
Tesler quickly gained in experience and while continuing to produce panel games he worked his way upwards at the BBC, developing and producing larger and more significant shows. He produced a pilot show for a possible new series written by the radio writers Frank Muir and Denis Norden for the husband and wife light comedy team, Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly. Barbara with Braden transmitted in July 1953 and was well received by the critics,Joan Purdon, "Point of View", Leicester Chronicle, Leicester, England, 8 August 1953, p5. though the series did not appear for another two years, and was then titled Bath-Night With Braden. It was the first comedy show to transmit on a weekly basis rather than once a fortnight. And So to Bentley, a series also written by Muir and Nordern, featuring the Australian comic actor Dick Bentley with Peter Sellers and Bill Fraser, was regarded as a flop, but showed Tesler had increasing confidence in comedy direction and confirmed to him the value of a live studio audience. Fast and Loose was another comedy series, this time written by Bob Monkhouse and Dennis Goodwin. It was the first series to show their talents as performers as well as writers.
Tesler's musical talents encouraged him to develop music shows was well as comedy. Among them was Music and Magic, described by Radio Times as "a miscellany of music, dance and illusion","Friday Television", Radio Times, London, England, 6 April 1956, p40 which featured illusionists like David Nixon and performers like Frankie Vaughan together with some technical trickery. Tesler broke some boundaries with We Got Rhythm, a show with an all-black cast of singers, dancers and cabaret artistes, including Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson. Frank Chacksfield's light music orchestra was of symphonic size but Tesler was able to use all the television techniques then at his disposal to convert what would otherwise be essentially a radio programme into a television show spectacular. The television spectacle of The Great Little Tilley was only possible by Tesler organising a two-studio production utilising studios D and E at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios in West London, staging dramatic sequences about the life and times of the male impersonator Vesta Tilley in one studio and her music hall performing sequences in the other, while Pat Kirkwood as Tilley in a live production was forced to rush backwards and forwards between the two.
In January 1955, after two years under contract to BBC Television, Tesler signed with the BBC for a further two years. His new contract barred him from working for any of the new commercial television stations being set up to launch Independent Television (ITV) in Britain.Our Radio Correspondent, "BBC Sign TV Producer", Daily Telegraph, London, England, 23 February 1955, p8. Tesler later wrote in his autobiography that "the idea of working in the cut-throat commercial world was repugnant," and that he felt his future at the BBC held plenty of attractive production prospects. At the time he was in the middle of the first season of Ask Pickles, a popular television vehicle for the radio star Wilfred Pickles.
With Ask Pickles, Tesler invented British television's first "sentimental"Peter Black, "A Generation Ago − Peter Black on the rise of television in the early Fifties", The Listener, London, England, vol82, no2110, 4 September 1969, p308. request show in which viewers could have their wishes come true. Pickles wanted to expand into television and to do that Tesler devised a new show. "Wilfred Pickles invites you to Ask Pickles for the things you would like to see and hear," announced Radio Times."Friday Television Programmes", Radio Times, London, England, 21 May 1954, p44 Tesler's office received as many as 10,000 request letters a week from viewers and Ask Pickles became the most popular show on television,Max North, "A Poser for the Golden Boy", Manchester Evening News, Manchester, England, 20 May 1955, p55. scoring appreciation ratings in the 90s. Tesler won the first ever Light Entertainment (Production) Award from the Guild of Television Producers and Directors (now the British Academy of Film and Television Arts [BAFTA]) for Ask Pickles in December 1957.
Another radio star who wanted to break into television was the bandleader Billy Cotton. Tesler was given the task of devising a television version of Cotton's long-running Sunday lunchtime BBC Radio show. As a music hall devotee and avid radio listener, Tesler knew Cotton's act well and knew what would work. He brought in a comedy scriptwriter, engaged guest artistes for comedy routines with Cotton and the band, and even persuaded the 60-year-old Cotton to join in dance routines with a line of dancers, The Leslie Roberts Silhouettes.Bill Cotton, Double Bill: 80 Years of Entertainment, Fourth Estate Limited, London, 2000, p45, . The Billy Cotton Band Show became a long-running light entertainment success for BBC Television for twelve years, Tesler producing it for its first season.John Maxwell, The Greatest Billy Cotton Band Show, Jupiter London, England, 1976,