BBC man Sir Bill Cotton dies aged 80

Sir Bill Cotton, the man behind the success of BBC light entertainment from the 1960s to the 1980s who has died at the age of 80, never overcame the problems of being confused with his father, the band leader Billy Cotton. Even when he had risen to be managing director of BBC Television (he was also controller of BBC1), he was confronted by an elderly woman at a Buckingham Palace garden party who asked him why he had stopped his television band show. "I'm too old," he replied with a twinkle. "Not at all," she retorted, "you look just the same to me." His father had been dead for 17 years.

The man responsible for discovering The Two Ronnies and Michael Parkinson and inventing The Generation Game won a place to Cambridge but chose instead to become a song plugger for Noel Gay, the music publisher. After he joined the BBC - where he was to spend more than 30 years - he was cheerfully aware of the sharper and better educated minds around him, according to his obituary in the Times. But he said that he was never disadvantaged. "The great thing about being mediocre is that I am always at my best," was his oft-used quip.

He was, the obituary records, immensely popular at the BBC. He was famous for his superstitious aversion to green - he would never wear green or get into a green car – and for keeping meetings short and to the point.

Once, when the BBC and ITV were locked in combat over audiences for the new breakfast programming, he brought an acrimonious corporation meeting to a sudden halt by shouting: "Remember the battleship Potemkin!" When his executives responded with uncomprehending stares, Cotton explained: "They put too much faith in the ratings." During the laughter that ensued, Cotton gathered his papers and left them to it.