Joanna Spicer

Spicer was born in St Albans in 1906. Her parents were Alice Mary (born Smith) and Andrew Owen Gibbon.[1] She won a place at Somerville College in Oxford after attending St Paul's Girls' School. She studied history and after graduating with a second class degree she stayed for an extra year to gain a post graduate qualification in education.[1]

She married in 1937 and two years later she worked for the Ministry of Information where she worked in broadcasting. At that time the BBC was extending its services and in 1941 she moved to the BBC.[1]

She was involved in an emerging technology. The ability to record television would transform its creation, but the new technology created management problems. In June 1953, Spicer had to inform Rudolph Cartier, producer of The Quatermass Experiment, that it was not possible to record trailers using the programme's actors as the agreement with the actor's union Equity then only allowed for live performances.[2]

Spicer became the assistant controller of planning at the BBC and was one of those who backed the idea of creating a science fiction series for Saturday evenings. This idea would result in Doctor Who. The BBC credit Spicer as being the main proponent of its filming at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush.[3] It was her role to decide which BBC department would be given the necessary resource to make programmes. The demand was a lot higher than the supply and she controlled who would have priority.[1] In 1974 she was promoted from being an OBE to become a CBE.

An important conversation she had with David Attenborough was her suggestion that documentaries should be made to exploit the introduction of colour television to the UK. This would lead in time to the landmark TV series Civilisation.[1]

In time, she reached the retirement age at the BBC, but her contract was renewed. She was offered a lucrative position as independent television's representative at Eurovision, but the BBC wanted to retain her expertise.[1]

She retired from the BBC in 1973 but she still had the compulsion to work. She spent a decade working with Asa Briggs who was a historian concentrating on television. He had been surprised to find that an important figure like Spicer was not in Who's Who.[3] Between the two of them they documented the emergence and resulting competition that resulted as independent television was allowed in the UK. Their work together resulted in the 1986 book The Franchise Affair.[4]

Spicer died in Charing Cross Hospital.[1] She was described as BBC TV’s top programme planner and that she "ran BBC Television single handed."[3] She help a key job during an important time in the history of British television.[5]