My father John Radcliffe, who has died aged 90, led the BBC computer literacy project that in the early 1980s introduced microcomputers into schools and homes. Together with a television series and educational books, the BBC literacy project succeeded in fostering a generation of computer programmers and prepared the way for the teaching of IT in UK schools.

John began his career at the BBC as a World Service producer in 1961. His subsequent move into schools television and educational broadcasting led to his navigating enormous technological and cultural shifts in broadcasting. As an executive producer in the continuing education department, John oversaw a remarkable range of innovative adult educational programmes, including All in the Mind, a documentary about group psychotherapy.

He collaborated with the Irish journalist Nuala O’Faolain on a documentary series exploring the impact of the Troubles on Northern Ireland and on Irish communities in London. He produced For the Love of Albert, working with the playwright Alan Plater, guiding viewers through their rights to claim benefits, performed in front of studio audiences drawn from Manchester council estates.

John’s final roles at the BBC included his tenure as head of the Open University production centre at Milton Keynes, and head of BBC Select, the development of subscription television for niche audiences using decoder technology – an innovation that was ultimately overtaken by satellite broadcasting and the internet. He retired from the BBC in 1995. An active member of the Rudyard Kipling Society until the end of his life, John co-wrote the online New Readers’ Guide.

The oldest of five children, John was born in Weybridge, Surrey, and grew up in Almondsbury just outside Bristol. His father, John Radcliffe, worked for the Bristol Aeroplane Company; his mother Margery (nee Lumsden), had acted at the Gate Theatre in Dublin as a young woman and played songs on BBC Children’s Hour. John won a scholarship to Cheltenham college. His childhood and that of his siblings was shattered in 1949 with the death of their father in a test flight over the Channel.

During national service in Transjordan, as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, John developed a lifelong love of skiffle and folk music and learned to play the guitar. In 1954 he won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, and studied history. He met Bridget Cuthbert in the university library and they married in 1959. They lived in Blackheath, south London, and had three children, later moving north of the Thames to Islington. Bridget died of cancer in 1999.

John made friends wherever he went, and in later life never seemed to make a train journey without having had a fascinating conversation with a fellow passenger. He married Sheila (nee Butler), whom he had met at the Open University, in 2000, and they moved to a village in Warwickshire.

After Sheila’s death in 2016, John moved back to Islington in 2018. Macular degeneration meant that he was increasingly less able to read but he kept up with world events.

John is survived by his children, Virginia, Jonathan and me, by six grandchildren, Sidney, Olivia, Ruby, Iona, Frank and Noah, and his siblings, Michael, Judith and Dan.