The Canadian-born producer Sydney Newman was in charge of Armchair Theatre between September 1958 and December 1962 during what is generally considered to have been its best era and produced 152 episodes.
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Hugely popular at its peak, with audiences occasionally touching an astounding twenty million, Armchair Theatre was an important influence over later programmes such as the BBC's The Wednesday Play (1964–70), a programme initiated by Sydney Newman after he had moved to the BBC.
In the same year he requested Sydney Newman to develop a new Saturday evening show for BBC1 which would become Doctor Who.
Howard Thomas was appointed as managing director of the company and hired Sydney Newman and Brian Tesler as his controllers of drama and light entertainment respectively.
Tucker's friend, the actor and director Hugh David — whom Tucker had actually approached about playing the leading role in the series — later claimed in interviews that it was Tucker who had named the series Doctor Who, although Tucker himself credited Sydney Newman with this.
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The producer of the series was Sydney Newman, who was later responsible for the creation of Doctor Who as Head of Drama at BBC Television.
In 1963, the new Head of Drama at the BBC, Sydney Newman, offered Sutton the job of being the first producer for the new science-fiction series Doctor Who, but Sutton declined.