Broadcasting campaigner
Broadcasting campaigner
Born: July 30, 1927; Died: January 21, 2014
Jocelyn Hay, who has died aged 86, was a redoubtable, respected campaigner on television and radio and the founder of pressure group Voice Of The Listener And Viewer (VLV).
She founded the group in 1983 as a voice for radio listeners in response to a proposal, which horrified her, to make Radio 4 an all-news and current affairs channel, and she remained president of the organisation until her death.
She was born in Swansea but grew up in Australia, before returning to the UK when she was 19 years old. After marrying army officer Bill Hay, she travelled extensively before settling in London where she joined the Girl Guides in their press department. She was head of press and public relations at Girl Guide Commonwealth Headquarters from 1973 until 1978.
She later worked as a freelance writer and broadcaster, working on Woman's Hour on Radio 4 among other programmes but it was when BBC radio managing director Richard Francis announced his plans for the station in the early 1980s that Hay was spurred into action and founded VLV in 1983.
She won her battle, with the plans for Radio 4 being swiftly dropped, and in the years that followed built VLV into one of the leading voices on issues affecting public service broadcasting. She was sometimes compared to Mary Whitehouse, of the National Viewers' and Listeners Association but unlike Whitehouse, whose obsession was smut and horror, Hay was much more concerned with the quality and diversity of Tv and radio. She wanted it to be good.
In 1991, her organisation, which has around 1,500 members, added the words "And Viewer" to its title and continued to successfully campaigned on a number of issues. In the mid-1980s, for instance, it fought plans, contained in the Peacock Inquiry, to allow some commercials on the BBC and privatise Radio 1 and 2.
Alongside her duties with VLV, Hay continued to work as a broad-caster herself and was also a director of the training agency, London Media Workshops, which specialised in writing, directing and producing radio, television and video programmes.
She was appointed an MBE in 1999, and made a CBE in 2005 for her work with VLV. She was awarded the Elizabeth R Award for an Exceptional Contribution to Public Service Broadcasting by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association in 1999 and in 2007 was presented with the European Women of Achievement Award by the European Union of Women.
She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and member of the Society of Authors. She went on to become president of the European Alliance of Listeners' & Viewers' Associations for 12 years.
When she spoke about her work, Hay always emphasised the importance of television and radio in people's lives.
"For a huge number of people, their only leisure activity and relaxation is to watch something on the box at home at the end of the day's work," she said.
"VLV views with great concern the relaxation in regulation in many areas, particularly to do with advertising, sponsorship, product placement. Once you break the trust that viewers have in the broadcasters, you'll never get it back again. That trust is a very precious commodity."
BBC Director-General, Tony Hall said: "Jocelyn Hay had a huge impact on broadcasting in this country. She never stopped campaigning for better quality programmes and for all broadcasters to put their audiences first. She always believed it was every broadcaster's duty to make engaging programmes that captured the public's imagination."
Hay had remained active and involved in VLV until recently. She was pre-deceased by her husband and is survived by two daughters.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article