This is taken from The Times, November 04, 2006:

Ian Mackenzie
August 3, 1931 - October 31, 2006
Scottish churchman and BBC executive who conceived many high-quality programmes

IAN MACKENZIE straddled the worlds of the Church and broadcasting in Scotland, and people in both spheres were baffled by him.

He was head of religious programmes for BBC Scotland from 1973 to 1989. Alastair Hetherington, Controller of BBC Scotland for three of these years, wrote of Mackenzie: “He believed that as the institutional Church declined, broadcasting had a key role in promoting spiritual understanding; and that an endemic seriousness in the average Scot’s perception of religion deserved a Scottish emphasis in religious broadcasting.”

However, in the 1970s the Church of Scotland did not recognise how serious its own decline was, and believed it was still entitled to the place it had once had as a power in the land. Mackenzie’s decision to abandon the televising of church services was not seen as a recognition that fewer understood traditional worship but as a contribution to the diminishing of the Church’s influence.

Ian Murdo Mackenzie was born in Fraserburgh, and became a very accomplished organist at the parish church where his father was minister. He was educated at Strichen School and at Fettes and went to Edinburgh University to study music. He edited the university newspaper, wrote for an evening newspaper, was assistant organist of St Giles’ Cathedral, and failed to gain a degree.

Mackenzie was at the organ in St Giles’ Cathedral when the Queen arrived for a service after her Coronation in 1953. He was a brilliant improviser and only those with a particularly fine musical ear were able to recognise that as the Queen was entering the cathedral the organ was playing variations on She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain.

Mackenzie transferred to the faculty of divinity at Edinburgh to study for the ministry of the Church of Scotland, and although, again, he did not complete a degree course, he was ordained as the assistant minister in St Giles’ Cathedral in 1960. After two fairly turbulent years, during which his theological and political radicalism contrasted with a somewhat staid and conservative congregation, he was appointed Scottish secretary of the Student Christian Movement, and then in 1963 to be the movement’s assistant general secretary in London. In 1964 he became the executive producer of religious programmes for ABC TV, and conceived long-running, popular series, including Looking for an Answer and From Inner Space. He was also a regular religious columnist for The Times.

Mackenzie had a brilliantly creative mind, and often, when programmes he had conceived had to be handed over to others to produce and direct, those responsible for them lacked the imagination to grasp his original concept. He also had a very low boredom threshold which often led him to lose interest in the details of how the programmes he originated were being produced.

In 1969 Mackenzie moved to Peterhead, then at the beginning of the oil and fishing boom, to be minister of the Old Parish Church. However, his interest in television continued through work for Grampian Television and his chairmanship of the Scottish Religious Panel of the IBA. In 1973 he was appointed head of religious programmes for BBC Scotland.

He almost immediately ran into difficulties with the Church of Scotland, and a campaign against him was orchestrated by Ronald Falconer, who had been in charge of the BBC’s religious broadcasting in Scotland until the early 1970s.

However, Mackenzie had the support of senior management and his policy of recruiting those who were capable of producing and directing good television programmes, irrespective of whether or not they had any religious faith, resulted in high-quality programmes such as Eighth Day and Voyager.

He once wrote that what mattered was not whether programmes were old-fashioned or new-fashioned but involved “the tearing sound of costly truth being fashioned”. He had a magnificent way with words, which made him a fine broadcaster, and he occasionally contributed to political speeches made by a fellow student at Edinburgh, David (now Lord) Steel.

After a heart attack in 1988 Mackenzie took early retirement but continued to broadcast on radio, write, preach and play the organ.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, and their son and daughter.

Ian Mackenzie, head of religious programmes for BBC Scotland, 1973-89, was born on August 3, 1931. He died on October 31, 2006, aged 75