Sidney Bernstein, Baron Bernstein

Sidney Lewis Bernstein, Baron Bernstein (born January 30, 1899 in Ilford , Essex , † February 5, 1993 in London ) was a British media entrepreneur.

Family background

Sidney Bernstein's Jewish ancestors came from Russia, from where they had fled oppression and pogroms . Bernstein's father, Alexander Bernstein, originally worked in the leather trade, but showed a lot of business skills in other areas as well. Alexander Bernstein, father of eight children, liked to buy real estate through foreclosures. He once bought a 600-house estate for £ 270 and had it renovated at great expense, which turned out to be financially worthwhile. In the following years he also bought a total of eight theaters.

Sidney Bernstein left school at the request of his father at the age of 15 in order to gain professional experience. His father gave him sole responsibility for a cinema at an early age. After his older brother Selim fell in World War I , Bernstein moved up as the oldest brother in the line of succession.

Professional background

After his father's death in 1922, Sidney Bernstein inherited his father's real estate; all of his brothers were employed in the family business, but Sidney ran it. Together with his brother Cecil, he built a successful chain of cinemas and theaters. Your company eventually included investments in publishing houses, real estate, rest stops, supermarkets, bowling alleys, as well as a highly profitable rental of television.

Bernstein recognized the commercial potential of television early on, but its socialist principles initially prevented him from attacking the BBC's monopoly . He believed that television could have such power over people's opinions that it should not be left to private individuals or companies. He was a staunch socialist all his life and, according to MI5 , he was considered a "security risk" during World War II because he had many communist friends. Despite these concerns, he worked as a consultant for the British Ministry of Information from 1940 to 1945.

After the war, Bernstein stayed in the United States for around five years , where he founded the company Transatlantic Pictures together with Alfred Hitchcock and realized two film projects. The company went bankrupt, however, as both of the films now considered classics were financial failures.

During this time, Bernstein's marriage to the journalist Zoe Farmer, whom he had married in 1936, broke up.

Granada Television

The Granada building in Liverpool

The Granada Headquarters in Manchester in 2006. It was closed in June 2013.

When private television licenses were granted in Great Britain in 1954, Sidney Bernstein was licensed to broadcast commercial television in the north of England. Granada founded this entrepreneurial decision in 1961 before the Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting : “The north and London were the two largest regions. Granada preferred the north because of its indigenous cultural tradition and because it offered an opportunity to develop a new creative industry outside of the metropolitan atmosphere of London People there would watch a lot of television.

In order to achieve his goal, Bernstein commissioned the construction of the first television studios in Great Britain in 1954. At his request, the studios were given a white barred tower in the form of a transmission tower. Paintings from Bernstein's art collection and portraits of show greats like Edward R. Murrow and PT Barnum adorned the studio walls to, according to Bernstein, inspire the Granada staff.

Despite all objections to the licensing of a company with clearly left-wing tendencies, Granada began broadcasting in May 1956. The slogan was From the North , and the new district was named Granadaland . At Bernstein's request, the first broadcast was an homage to the BBC, whose history he had always admired. In January 1957 the ten most popular programs were broadcast in the north of Granada. In 1962, Granada was the first broadcaster to put the Beatles on screen. One of the station's most popular series was the soap opera Coronation Street , which both Bernstein and his brother Cecil were initially not enthusiastic about. Documentaries like World in Action , Disappearing World , and What the Papers Say were more in keeping with the founder's ideals .

In its first year in Granada, the company had sales of £ 218,204, compared to £ 43 million in 1980.

Later years

In 1969 Sidney Bernstein was promoted to life peer as Baron Bernstein , of Leigh in the County of Kent. In the 1970s he gave up responsibility for the TV company and in 1979 he resigned from the company entirely. He was succeeded by Alexander Bernstein , son of his brother Cecil. He became chairman of the Royal Exchange Theater in Manchester; he was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute and received the 1984 International Emmy Directorate Award .

Personal

Bernstein was a passionate art collector; He left his paintings to the Manchester Art Gallery , including works by Marc Chagall and Amedeo Modigliani .

Since 1954 Sidney Bernstein was married to his second wife Sandra Malone. He became a father for the first time at the age of 56, and the couple had a son and two daughters.

Filmography

• Cocktail for a corpse (1948) (producer), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• Slave of the Heart (1949) (producer), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945) (producer), documentary film about the liberation of the German concentration camps. First published in 1984 under the title Memory of the Camps .
• Frontline (producer) (1 episode US TV series)

literature

• Caroline Moorehead : Sidney Bernstein: A Biography . London: J. Cape, 1984

Web links

• Sidney Bernstein in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Sidney Bernstein's biography on the British Film Institute website
• Biography of Sidney Bernstein on museum.tv ( Memento from August 20, 2002 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Sidney Bernstein. Granada's Founding Father on teletronic.co.uk
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Anthony Howard: Obituary: Lord Bernstein . In: The Independent , February 6, 1993. 
3. ↑ Jack Malvern: Baron Bernstein, creator of Granada TV, a "Soviet informer" . In: The Times , March 8, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2011. 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Lord Sidney Bernstein on .manchester-celebrities.co.uk ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ English text: “The North and London were the two biggest regions. Granada preferred the North because of its tradition of home-grown culture, and because it offered a chance to start a new creative industry away from the metropolitan atmosphere of London. "Tony Pearson: Bernstein, Sidney . In: Museum of Broadcast Communications . Archived from the original on August 20, 2002. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
6. ↑ Bernstein - genial tyrant of Granada: Jeremy Isaacs recalls his former boss and founder of the Granada group, who died at 94 . In: The Independent , February 7, 1993. 
7. ↑ Manchester Art Gallery . In: manchesterwalks . Retrieved August 3, 2013.