Greaves, Bob

Born in Sale, Cheshire, Bob Greaves served his journalistic apprenticeship in print, passing through the Sale and Stretford Guardian, the Nottingham Evening News and the Manchester office of the Daily Mail before the pull of broadcasting proved irresistible.

In 1963, he joined Granada Television at its Quay Street base in Manchester, initially working on the regional news magazine Scene at 6.30.

It was as a young news editor at the programme that he found himself in charge on the night President Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963 – a formative experience that shaped his instincts as a broadcaster.

He subsequently moved in front of the camera as reporter and presenter, working alongside colleagues who would themselves become prominent names in British broadcasting: Bill Grundy, Michael Parkinson, Mike Scott and Brian Trueman.

Over the decades that followed, Greaves became the defining on-screen presence of Granada’s regional news operation.

He fronted a succession of the station’s flagship programmes – Six-O-One, Newsday, Newsview, Newscene, Granada Reports (from 1973) and Granada Tonight – accumulating 34 years in the role and, by his own calculation, 12,000 hours of Granada output.

Alongside the news programmes, he presented an extensive range of regional current affairs and feature programming, including:

• Put It in Writing;
• Police File (from 1967);
• Five series of the award-winning charity telethon Scramble;
• Family Trees;
• Bob’s Century;
• Time Off;
• Bob’s Hotline.

His regional profile extended to the national ITV network when he co-presented Reports Action (1976 – 1978 and 1981), a social action series spun off from Granada Reports.

For Channel 4, he also presented and reported on Union World.

Beyond his Granada commitments, Greaves covered football for several national newspapers, among them the Mail on Sunday.

One moment above all others etched itself into the collective memory of British television viewers: a live broadcast from Chester Zoo in 1981, during which an elephant named Judy provided rather more input than the director had anticipated.

The clip became a fixture on the ITV entertainment programme It’ll Be Alright on the Night.

Greaves retired from Granada in 1999.

On 17th January 2008 he appeared on the BBC One daytime series Wanted Down Under, travelling to the coastal city of Cairns in Queensland, Australia with his fifth wife Sonia – a naturopathic counsellor – as the two weighed up the prospect of emigrating permanently.

He died at home after a prolonged battle with cancer, aged 76.

His funeral service was held at Timperley Methodist Church on Friday 1st April, attended by former Granada colleagues.

Personal information

Clips of Bob on The TV Room

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Online presence

Acknowledgements