Anthony Smith (producer)

Smith died from renal failure at his home at Albany, in Piccadilly, London, on 28 November 2021, at the age of 83.

He was for four years a Member of the Arts Council of Great Britain and had a long association with the Writers & Scholars Educational Trust, (which produces Index on Censorship), acting for several years as its chairman. He was for 10 years a member of the Cambodia Trust for the rehabilitation of landmine victims, and also was for 10 years chairman of the Jan Hus Educational Foundation which was active in helping intellectuals and academics in Czechia and Slovakia in the years before and after the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

In 1988 he was appointed President of Magdalen College, Oxford University, and he retired from this position in 2005.

He was made CBE in 1987, and was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Arts) by Oxford Brookes University in 1997.

Between 1979 and 1988, he was director of the British Film Institute and was involved in the conception and establishment of the Museum of the Moving Image on London's South Bank.

In the early 1970s, he became a research fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. He worked for the Annan Committee on The Future of Broadcasting, and became engaged in the national debate which led to the foundation of the UK's Channel 4. He was subsequently appointed a board director of Channel 4 (1981–1985). He carried out research for the McGregor Commission on the Press, which presented its report in 1976.

His career in broadcasting started as a producer of current affairs programmes on the BBC in the 1960s. He became responsible for running the nightly news programme Twenty-Four Hours.

Anthony David Smith, CBE (14 March 1938 – 28 November 2021) was a British broadcaster, author and academic, who was president of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1988 to 2005.

Smith was born on 14 March 1938 and attended Harrow County School for Boys (now Harrow High School), from 1949 to 1956. He read English at Brasenose College, Oxford.