Donald Baverstock

Donald Baverstock was the Controller of BBC One who ordered Sydney Newman to create the Saturday tea time show that became Doctor Who. He was significantly involved in the creation of the programme.

When Hugh Greene, Director-General of the BBC, decided to make Baverstock switch places with his BBC2 counterpart in early 1965, Baverstock saw it as a demotion and resigned from the BBC. In accordance with half of Greene's original plan, he was replaced by Michael Peacock.

He then went on to Yorkshire Television where he helped to create, amongst other programmes,, the soap opera that would long employ Doctor Who actors from Frazer Hines to Jenna-Louise Coleman.

Fictional portrayals
A caricature of him, called "Mr Borusa", was played by Mark Gatiss in The Pitch of Fear, a broad fictionalisation of Newman's pitch meeting for Doctor Who.