Bill maintained a consistent element of comedy during his stints as producer, which enabled characters such as Stan Ogden, Hilda Ogden and Eddie Yeats to become popular and well-loved by longtime fans to this day. However, some of the cast nicknamed him "The Godfather" because of his occasional ruthlessness when it came to killing off characters such as Ernie Bishop and Renee Roberts. He also became somewhat unpopular with his co-workers for terminating the contract of Peter Adamson (Len Fairclough) after Peter had sold his story of his 1982 arrest for child molestation to a tabloid newspaper.