Ian Cassan Messiter (2 April 1920 – 22 November 1999) was an English BBC Radio producer and the creator of a number of panel games, including Just a Minute,[1] Dealing With Daniels and Many a Slip.
Messiter brought the successful twenty questions format to BBC Radio[1] and was programme associate for Family Fortunes.
In his autobiography, My Life and Other Games (1990), Messiter described how an incident during a history lesson at Sherborne School became the inspiration for the Just a Minute radio panel-game.
Nicholas Parsons stated that Just a Minute is "perhaps the most deceptively simple, enduring, popular and much-copied comedy game on radio or television anywhere".
They had two children: a daughter, Susan, who lives in Cambridgeshire, and a son, Malcolm Messiter, who is an oboist.