Scott Gronmark (OK 1970)

Scott Grønmark (d. 29 June 2020) was a broadcaster, writer, and online and interactive TV executive. He was born in Norway and spent the first six years of his life there, mainly on Air Force bases. After his family moved to London he attended King’s and then read Philosophy at Cambridge.

His first job was with the publisher, Academic Press, in Camden Town. He swiftly moved to New English Library in Holborn – a far racier proposition. He wrote some genre novels for them in his spare time, and after four years had enough saved to become a full-time writer. He did that for seven years, publishing ten novels in all.

Eventually, he ran out of ideas and, thanks to a friend, got a job with BBC Radio 2’s John Dunn Show, which led to a research job with BBC TV ‘s Nine O’Clock News, where he ended up as a producer. He spent ten years with BBC News & Current Affairs, finishing as the editor of a live BBC2 political talk show, Midnight Hour.

In 1997 Scott became Homepage Editor at BBC Online before joining Interactive TV and launching what is now the excellent BBCi red button service. Interactive TV programmes followed – he was in charge of the team that created services such as Wimbledon, Test the Nation and World Cup Interactive. Having become a suit, Scott took early retirement at 51 and ran a new media consultancy, Scott Gronmark Associates, for seven years. During that period he did work for commercial companies such as Honda and Reckitt Benckiser, and helped devise and launch two live interactive talk shows for the new BBC Arabic and BBC Persian TV channels. The last two are the projects he’s most proud of having been involved in.

In his retirement, he spent his time writing his blog, attending book groups and poetry reading sessions (not his own!), playing electric and acoustic guitars, creating and recording music on his iMac, enjoying nature, going to church every few weeks, riding his bike, watching tennis on TV, reading a lot, and still trying to figure out “what the hell it’s all about”.