John Gau, who has died aged 83, had a 40-year career in television current affairs and documentaries that was notable for his time as a producer on Panorama, a tumultuous period as the BBC’s head of current affairs and then as a leading light in the new age of independent production heralded by the launch of Channel 4.
On Panorama from 1969 to 1973 he formed a fruitful producer-reporter partnership with Julian Pettifer. Their early programmes raised moral questions about the huge cost of the moon landings, assessed the British army’s role in Northern Ireland and, in 1973, revealed what life was really like for citizens of Ukraine, in advance of a first visit to the Soviet Union by British royals since the 1917 revolution.
