Ward Thomas (television executive)

He flew 36 trips over France and Germany over the course of the war, including taking part in the Nuremberg raid of March 1944 during which Bomber Command suffered its heaviest loses.

[5] He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his involvement in bombing raids on the German Panzer training camp at Mailly-le-Camp in advance of the Normandy landings in June 1944.

In a bold move, Ward Thomas threatened to close the station down if staff backed the union proposal, at which point it was overruled.

[12] After only a year of being on air, Ward Thomas had to steer the company through the potentially disastrous collapse of its only broadcasting transmitter on Emley Moor.

Anglia Television was also supposed to form part of the group (making up the third spur of the trident) but its inclusion was blocked by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA).

[20] YTV's difficulties stemmed from overselling air-time to advertisers in 1992-3, this had to be honoured in the following year forcing the company to make provisions of £20.2m to cover the debt.

[24] Having been brought in initially as a temporary measure to stabilise the company, Ward Thomas announced in March 1996 that the board had asked him to continue his time at the helm.

[25] In June 1997, after a long period of corporate courtship, Ward Thomas convinced shareholders to accept a bid of £711m for YTV from Granada plc and the broadcasting franchise was sold.

[26] Ward Thomas had always advocated merging the ITV regional franchises into a single entity for efficiency reasons and with the sale of YTV to Granada this was brought one step closer to reality.