By Phil Moger
David Phillips was a newsroom revolutionary who, with a triple lock of raw talent, flair and forceful personality, changed the face of early evening news. He masterminded a whole new age of teatime TV journalism. He once said he got his energy through his enthusiasm. He never lacked either.
His News at 545 programme, his proudest achievement, defined an already gold-sparkled career and, in a strange twist, literally – and it was literally – followed him to his deathbed.
ITN had already created one revolution – the half-hour News at Ten, which he himself had been programme editing. It rightly dominated ITN’s output.
But the teatime news was a barren land – a ten-minute bulletin with no structure or person driving it. Phillips took a digger truck to that landscape and planted the seeds of a style that exists decades later.
It was once said that the footballer Glen Hoddle was ahead of his time; the same could be said of David Phillips. For even today rival programmes carry stories that they would never have dreamed of covering – even the BBC‘s teatime news.
When Phillips was handed the baton of reform, it was an era without 24-hour news, no breakfast TV, no C4 News and only two TV channels. That’s when ITN decided to raid the teatime audience.
Phillips was given a blank canvas to make a different fifteen-minute news programme. He saw a gap in the market. While no one had been sacked for putting out a programme that reflected the front page of the Times or Telegraph, Phillips wanted different stories. Serious stuff. Yes. But also stories that appeared in the mid-market Mail and Express and the red tops. No one had thought of that. Or sniffily ignored it.
The writing was to be different as well. More lively. Less sober. Phillips recruited his own team specifically for the programme. He had long discussions with Jim Goulding, the director, Jenny Phillips, graphics, the then vision mixer Jacqui Bromley, Frank Miles, chief writer and Derek Dowsett, the dependable chief sub – a quiet man totally the opposite of the dashing and sometimes excitable Phillips. Ying and Yang.
Topping it all was the newscaster Alastair Burnet. A strange choice – the ex-editor of the Economist for such a programme? Not at all. For Burnet arrived with another guise. He was the ex-editor of the Daily Express.
The programme had its own digital music. Five four five. Five four five. And Phillips had another huge innovation – one still copied – an end title with pictures on a big news day. The phrase became commonplace: “And that’s the news on the day that… etc… etc…”
Another Phillips-induced subject was a wider emphasis on sport. The day’s big race figured. Because of that, the Queen Mother was said to be a fan.
The programme took off. A bit raunchy, as Ed Stourton was later to describe it. And it did not meet the approval of some of the old-timers. But the audience loved it. Ten million of them each night.
And what of Phillips himself? Nigel Hancock once described him as “quite simply one of the greatest newsmen to come out of ITN”.
He had a sterling career at ITN before the 545. One of his biggest moments: the story of the blowing up of three airliners which had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. It involved Phillips handing over £20,000 to get an empty Caravelle jet to carry the picture out for an ITN exclusive programme.
And there were exclusive interviews with Black September terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. And produced remaining Israeli hostages before the cameras.
Phillips left ITN in 1979 – in a surprise move – to join the American broadcasting giant NBC as Paris Bureau Chief and Chief Field Producer for Europe and the Middle East. He was with NBC for 15 years. Nigel Hancock said he never understood why he left ITN.
I got some idea years later and only with the more reflective thinking of the ITN archive can the strange story be revealed. I eventually became Chief Sub of the 540 – as it became – and the Programme Editor years later. But I lost contact with David for twenty years and he certainly did not have any contact with ITN.
I became a news consultant for ITV and one day had an hour-long talk with the then head of Meridian TV news. Just as I was leaving, he said to me: “I think you might have known my father.” Only then did the penny drop. The man was Guy Phillips, David’s talented journalist son who now heads up all regional news on ITV.
David had retired by then and later had a severe stroke. I saw him many times at his home in Guildford, his brain as sharp as ever, but physically incapacitated. “Like being mugged,” he said.
We discussed old times and his ITN departure. My memory is vague with time, but he revealed he was asked to draw up big plans for a new look News at Ten. He threw all his reforming zeal at it but discovered, to his dismay, that he was not to be given overall control. The NBC job came up, so he left. I have no doubt that had things been different, he would have stayed.
Indeed, when circumstances changed shortly after he left – and I thought he should be back in the newsroom – I rang late at night and begged him to return. But he said no.
But the News at 545 that he gave birth to was with him up to his last breath. With his family by his side, he died peacefully. The time – chronicled by his son on his digital watch was… five forty five. That was 5.45 – early evening teatime.
His life was complete. And it had come full circle.