Charles Denton (television and film producer)

Charles Denton (born 20 December 1937) is a British film and television producer and executive.

He first worked for the BBC as a documentary filmmaker for five years from 1963, before he left the corporation to go freelance. Denton formed the short-lived production company Tempest Films with the actor David Swift and fellow documentary maker Richard Marquand which first involved John Pilger in working for television and Pilger's first television documentary The Quiet Mutiny, which Denton directed for Granada's World in Action series.

At ATV he became successively deputy, then Head of Documentaries and later controller of programming. Not long after joining ATV he began the Pilger series which ran for five series between 1974 and 1977. John Pilger recalled: "Pilger was Charles' idea ... It was he who encouraged me to stand in front of the camera and say 'I'."

Denton came under extreme political and diplomatic pressure from both the British and Saudi governments both before and after ATV part-financed and produced the drama-documentary Death of a Princess shown on 9 April 1980. The British ambassador to Saudi Arabia was requested to leave the country, and remained away from his post for several months.

In 1981, he sacked Noele Gordon star of the soap opera Crossroads, a decision which antagonised viewers: "'I got excrement through the post'", he once said. As an act of revenge Gordon sang a 'love song' to him at the ATV End of Year Party. In the 1982 franchise round, the ITV Midlands broadcaster ATV turned into Central Independent Television, with Denton remaining in his post. He is an admirer of his former ATV boss, Lew Grade: "'Those times of meeting Lew in his office at 6.30am and watching him eat his grapefruit were among the happiest working days of my life ... ATV lost its franchise because it was too populist, but Lew would be sensationally right for ITV now.'"

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