Australian Dictionary of Biography

Bruce Gyngell (1929–2000), television executive, was born on 8 July 1929 at St Kilda, Melbourne, younger son and second of three children of Tasmanian-born Lewis Oswald Gyngell, engineer, who had once run a flying circus, and his Victorian-born wife, Elsie Smith, née Lenon. After the family moved to Sydney, Bruce attended Woolwich Public School, where he performed in the school play. He ‘adored’ Sydney Grammar School (1942–46)—‘it was a magical time, I loved every moment,’ he later recalled (Gyngell 1983)—and served on the school magazine committee.

Gyngell enrolled in medicine and arts at the University of Sydney, but did not attain a degree. In 1950, while still a student, he secured work at the Australian Broadcasting Commission where he became a trainee radio announcer. Dropping out of university, by 1953 he was hosting a music program, Latest and Brightest. He was also an air cadet with No. 22 (City of Sydney) Squadron, Active Citizen Air Force, appointed as a pilot officer in December 1953, and later transferred to the Air Force Reserve, serving until 1965.

Well-connected socially, in 1954 Gyngell joined the Consolidated Press advertising department through the patronage of (Sir) Frank Packer. Gyngell was desperate to work in the new medium of television and was sent to the United States of America for a television course at Columbia University, where he relished the energy of New York city. He also gained experience at NBC, and at KGMB in Honolulu. Back in Sydney, on 16 September 1956 he helped to script the opening night of Australia’s first television station, TCN-9. Technical difficulties intervened, but the slim and elegant Gyngell, dressed in a dinner suit, still stepped in to utter the memorable words, ‘Good evening, and welcome to television.’

Initially producing and hosting the game show Name That Tune, Gyngell swiftly became the station’s program director, working closely with the managing director, Ken Hall. With its panel shows, American series, and bright personalities and promotion, TCN-9 soon led the ratings despite Packer’s penny-pinching. While on buying trips to the United States, Gyngell would watch new releases for sixteen hours a day, but this was no hardship: ‘It was wonderful … I just love TV’ (AWW 1961, 19), he recalled. On 16 May 1957 he married Lesley Ann Barr, a Shanghai-born interior designer, at St Mark’s Anglican Church, Darling Point.

Succeeding Hall as managing director in 1966, Gyngell became a key player in a buying pool formed by commercial stations to reduce the price of imported content. Gyngell gave the future media entrepreneur Reg Grundy a leg-up by commissioning him to package a quiz show compered by Terry Dear so as to hide from Packer the fact the compère had been given a raise. He always had to be contactable by Packer, but after one phone call too many, in early 1969, while dining at an eastern suburbs restaurant, Gyngell resigned on the spot.

Fielding several approaches while recharging his batteries overseas, Gyngell accepted Rupert Henderson’s offer to become the first managing director of the Seven Network, formed by John Fairfax Ltd and The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, and joined the boards of its Sydney and Melbourne stations. Armed with a gold fob watch and worry beads, and with a penchant for pink shirts, he made much noise about the ‘Seven Revolution’ (Hall 1976, 36) that briefly saw Seven top the ratings.

‘Today Australia—tomorrow the world!’ (Moffitt 1972, 9) Gyngell declared as he left Sydney in 1972 to become managing director of the ATV commercial television network in London. He worked with much bigger budgets than in Australia and became deputy chairman to Sir Lew (later Baron) Grade in 1974, as well as head of ITC Films. Gyngell’s marriage came under increasing stress in Britain, and his wife and children eventually returned to Australia. Long keen on tennis, jogging and swimming, Gyngell became interested in oriental medicine, practised yoga and meditation, changed his diet to macrobiotics, and largely gave up alcohol.

The restless Gyngell returned to Australia in 1976 as a consultant to the Nine Network, armed with a promise of $100,000 for any Australian film he put into production for ITC. Given his commercial background, he then surprised observers by being appointed chair of the new Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT) in 1977, initiating public licence renewal hearings and supervising the introduction of new standards for Australian content and children’s television. However, he struggled to deal with complex legal and administrative matters, and was a magnet for controversy. Ever the showman, he ran a fifty-kilometre marathon to mark his fiftieth birthday and raise funds for Australia’s 1980 Olympic Games team.

With his term at the ABT due to expire, in 1980 the Federal government engaged him to oversee the establishment of the Special Broadcasting Service’s television service. He determined that multicultural programming should be in English to appeal to as many Australians as possible, and pioneered soccer coverage. At this time he also began a long association with World Vision, advising on marketing using celebrities and securing free television time for the organisation.

Dubbed ‘the Pink Panther’ for his sartorial flair and fierce business acumen, Gyngell returned to London in 1983 to run TV-am, a troubled new breakfast television company in which Packer’s son Kerry had bought a stake. Gyngell introduced a light, bubbly, magazine style which captured two-thirds of breakfast viewers. His relationships with staff were rocky at times. Some objected when he introduced personality tests for those seeking senior positions, and were wary of his commitment to Eastern mysticism, particularly the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness. His relentless pursuit of cost savings lead to conflict with the Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians, and culminated in a bruising strike (1987–88). Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher admired his entrepreneurial spirit and described him as her ‘favourite Australian’ (Ellis 1993, 35). He blamed overwork for a mild heart attack he suffered in March 1988. Having divorced Lesley, on 3 July 1986 at the registry office, Westminster, he had married Kathryn Julie Rowan, a thirty-six-year-old TV-am producer, with degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, institutions he revered.

Gyngell was devastated when TV-am was outbid in a blind auction for the breakfast franchise at ITV in 1992, and in a rare concession to modesty, blamed himself for misjudging the market. After a champagne-fuelled farewell party he co-hosted with (Sir) David Frost, he returned to Australia as executive chairman of the Nine Network at a time when its ratings dominance was under threat. He went back to Britain in 1995 as managing director of Yorkshire Television, until it was taken over by Granada in 1997. At a time when standards of media content were shifting, he insisted that free-to-air television bear a responsibility to reflect societal norms and refused to air sexually explicit programs. With homes in Chelsea and Dorset, he periodically returned to Australia as a consultant to Packer interests.

In January 2000, as news spread of his failing health, Gyngell was appointed AO; in April he received a lifetime achievement award from the Royal Television Society and was inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame. He died of lung cancer at Westminster on 7 September 2000, survived by the children from his first marriage, Briony, David, and Skye; and by his second wife Kathy and their sons, Adam and Jamie.

After a funeral and burial in London, a service of thanksgiving was held at St Andrews’ Anglican Cathedral in Sydney, with a fanfare composed for the star-studded occasion by Nine’s musical maestro Geoff Harvey. Charismatic, ruthless and eccentric, with an almost instinctive understanding of television, Gyngell had played an integral role in shaping the medium in Australia and Britain. Once when asked about his failures, he declared: ‘I couldn’t think of any’ (Herd n.d.).