[2] After joining the BBC in 1957 after National Service, he presented and produced a number of influential current affairs programmes, most notably Analysis and At Home and Abroad.
[4][5] After graduating from Cambridge in 1953 Ian McIntyre spent a postgraduate year at The College of Europe in Bruges, followed by National Service in the Intelligence Corps in Sussex.
[3] In February 1957 he joined the BBC as a producer in the Topical Talks Unit, initially working on a twice-weekly current affairs magazine programme At Home and Abroad.
He was then moved to become a course organiser at the BBC Training School, but after a year he left to join the Independent Television Authority (ITA) though he only stayed there a short time.
Ian McIntyre spent much of the 1960s working at the Conservative Central Office in Scotland, and stood unsuccessfully as a member of parliament against David Steel.
McIntyre stated in 1999 that Tony Whitby proposed a remit to provide "serious current affairs broadcasting...that...should be a sort of demonstration of good faith to the listener that there were going to be serious things done".