Former Digital News editor Hugo Martin has died suddenly at the age of 64.
Hugo was formerly the editor of Digital News, published by the Digital TV Group (DTG), and previously worked for IPC Magazines. A journalist for all of his working life, Hugo began his career on The Brighton and Hove Herald, editing directly on the printblogs in the days when newspapers were still set in hot metal.
He went onto become a freelance journalist, script editor, sub editor and reporter, working on various newspapers that ranged from European Chemical News to Reveille. He also worked as script editor on the BBC detective series Softly Softly and its spin-off Barlow at Large. Joining the Radio Times in 1979 he rose to become assistant editor, leaving in 1990 to join British Satellite Broadcasting as listings manager prior to its merger with Sky.
Having worked for TV Times earlier in his career, Hugo returned in 1991 to become assistant editor, where he was in charge of the listings team prior to deregulation. When the market was opened up and the TV Times was finally allowed to publish listings from the BBC channels Hugo ran the department that provided listings to TV Times, What’s On TV and, following its launch in 1993, TV & Satellite Week. He began a long running and successful campaign to prevent the cross promotion of the Radio Times by BBC Television.
Hugo joined the DTG in 1999, after a chance meeting at the organisation’s Annual General Meeting coincided with his work for IPC beginning to wind down. Within weeks of joining the DTG Hugo had used his contacts to put together a meeting with the BBC on digital television production. He took Digital News from being what was essentially a house journal and put it onto a professional footing.
His colleagues at the DTG were impressed with his parliamentary reporting skills as he reported on the progress of the Communications Bill and other related legislation. Hugo was said to have the best sub editor contact book in town and was the world’s best source of gossip.
The funeral and Humanist commemoration will take place on Tuesday December 12, at 2.30pm, at the South Chapel, Woodvale Crematorium, near Brighton.
Hugo was always an entertaining gossip, not least because it was never safe to assume that even his more outlandish tales weren’t true.
He was also always ready to help where he could and he and his army of freelance sub editor followers from his listings days, were instrumental in getting me out of the doo doo when I most needed.
I first met Hugo when he wanted a local Brighton designer to improve the look of Digital News. We worked on 6 issues together, and when the journal was taken back in-house (and began to look even better, I might add) my main regret was that I would not be working with Hugo. I looked forward to his visits to change things on screen. He was always entertaining, interesting, and interested in the various pictures he passed on the way to my studio – he loved the visual arts. But my enduring memory of him is that he was kind. He would turn up clutching exotic plants, nurtured from cuttings by his wife Coral, to add beauty to our town-house courtyard. Thanks, Hugo – we will miss you.
I worked with Hugo at the Radio Times in the 1970s, where he was, at the time the Deputy Programme Editor. I remember him being very welcoming and encouraging to me as a new sub, and he had a notable sense of style, usually sporting a bow-tie and having flowers in his office.
I first got to know Hugo when he was still at IPC. An email arrived out of the blue expressing interest in something I’d written, and we got to know each other a bit better as we bumped into each other increasingly frequently at industry events. However, it was when he moved to the DTG that I really got to know him, and he subsequently supplied me with a steady stream of commissions for Digital News. We became something of a mutual admiration society as a result. He was unfailingly generous in his public comments about me, and I always regarded him as a unrivalled source of insight into the goings-on of the UK digital TV establishment.
Difficult to believe I won’t see that white thatch of hair bobbing towards me through the throng anymore, to be followed by an invitation to join him in the corner for a good goss.
Thanks, Hugo, we won’t forget you…
I first met Hugo in the early 80s when he hired me as a sub at Radio Times programmes, where I worked for him for three years (we worked together later at IPC). He was a kindly, funny and insightful editor and his swift grasp of the broader issues – listings is not just nitpicky details – was deeply impressive. He was most generous to those at the foot of the ladder – particularly the clerical and support staff – who responded to him with deep affection.