The Director of Television worked with Dimbleby for nearly thirty years. In the spring of 1965 he analysed the reasons for Dimbleby’s long-lasting success as a commentator:
Given a natural quickness of mind and a reasonable command of the language, most broadcasters who have to undertake a spontaneous commentary will rely on these talents to get them through almost any occasion. Not so Dimbleby. Though the measure of his gift in both respects is greater than anyone’s I know, it is not enough for him. He is the master of ‘associate material’, which he absorbs prodigiously and produces aptly, weaving it in and out of his narrative with the greatest of ease – or apparent ease. Travel with him in an aircraft to an overseas assignment, and you will find him surrounded by books bearing on the next broadcast (not the next but one) which he reads with great speed but without noting very much down. He has a remarkable memory which takes in temporarily and then rejects after the performance. It is like an athlete’s capacity for producing a final burst, or the last few inches of levitation.
He has sometimes been criticised for his attitude towards ‘the Establishment’. This springs from a natural respect for order and tradition, not from a mindless conservatism. He is a man much moved by cruelty and intolerance and does not pretend to be impartial towards such things. In addition to his broadcasting, he is a newspaper proprietor, a farmer, and a very happy and fortunate husband and father.
Though his face, grave or gay, and ample figure are a household picture, he is probably at his best (and satellite programmes have recently brought him American reviews which indisputably put him among the world’s best) when commentating, off screen, on great occasions, a Churchill funeral, a royal wedding, a Pope’s inauguration. Sitting in a central control room, faced with a battery of monitors, fitting his words to the changing pattern of pictures as chosen by the producer, he is an imperturbable master of his craft, and never more reliably so than when things happen unexpectedly or when things do not happen at all.