Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My cast away this week is a television executive with his bright braces and large cigar, he's the nearest thing we have to the popular image of a TV mogul.

That's hardly surprising. He's a member of a famous showbiz dynasty and grew up in the atmosphere of London's West End.

But it was not a usual childhood.

His mother left him when he was three and he was raised by his paternal grandmother.

He's been a journalist on the Daily Mirror, a theatrical agent, a Hollywood producer, and

the controller of BBC 1.

He's now the chief executive of Channel 4.

He is Michael Grayd. But apparently But apparently Michael you've never made a

television program in your life. Can this be true? I can't claim to have now. I've

sort of executive produced a few things a big miniseries in America, but that's about all my skills are

entrepreneurial really and I'm sort of an impassaria rather than a co-faced person

because you went in at quite a high level as head of entertainment at London weekend about 20 years ago

didn't you? Yes and it was a tough start and I had to relearn everything. I thought

television was like the theatre and it was completely the opposite. But have you missed that sort of apprenticeship?

I mean, have there been times when you've been

exec producing, as you say, programs and thought, my God, I wish I could get my hands on that

and do it how I see it.

No, because I'm able to maintain always the point of view of a viewer rather than as a professional.

But if you were able to get your hands on a program, what kind of program would you like to have produced?

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