Robert J. Wussler (September 8, 1936 – June 5, 2010) was a journalist, executive, and co-founder of
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
.
["Robert J. Wussler, CNN Co-Founder and CBS Exec, Dies at 73", ''The New York Times'', June 11, 201]
available online.
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Early life and education
Wussler was born in Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.[Seton Hall University
Seton Hall University (SHU) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in South Orange, New Jersey. Founded in 1856 by then-Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley and named after his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Seton Hall is the ...]
.
Career
Wussler began his career at CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
in 1957, working in the mailroom.[ He rose through the ranks to become the youngest president of the network at the age of 40.
Within weeks after joining CBS in 1957, Wussler became a production assistant, eventually rising to be an executive producer and a director of special events. From 1972 until 1974, Wussler served as the general manager of CBS-owned ]WBBM-TV
WBBM-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. Owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, the station maintains studios on West Washington Str ...
in Chicago.[ He returned to CBS headquarters in New York in 1974 as vice president of ]CBS Sports
CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...
. He then became the head of the network in 1976. He was forced to leave CBS on the eve of a Federal Communications Commission meeting to determine whether to penalize the network for its series of specially promoted tennis matches billed as “winner take all” when, in fact, the players had been paid large fees whether they won or lost. The F.C.C. went on to find that CBS had deliberately misled the public in connection with the players’ fees. In July 1978, the FCC announced that it would punish the network by shortening the length of a license renewal for one of the five television stations that CBS owned. Wussler denied having any specific knowledge of the financial arrangements for the tennis series. When he resigned from CBS, he said his departure was unrelated to the inquiry. But in an interview with United Press International in 1986, he said: “There were some people in Washington with the FCC who wanted to get at CBS, and there I was caught in the middle. So I was the fall guy.”
In 1978, Wussler formed his own production company, Pyramid Enterprises. Two years later, he joined Ted Turner at Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, eventually going on to co-found Cable News Network
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
.Night Tracks
''Night Tracks'' is an American television series which ran from 1983 to 1992 on Super Station WTBS (later known as TBS Super Station) on late night weekends. It premiered on Friday, June 3, 1983, and the first music video it aired was "Family ...
'' from 1983 to 1989 and President of Cable Music Channel
The Cable Music Channel (CMC) was a short-lived American basic cable channel that was owned by the Turner Broadcasting System. The all-music video channel was created by Ted Turner and launched in 1984, providing the first national competitio ...
in 1984.Cable Music Channel sign on - October 26, 1984
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From 1989 until 1992, Wussler was Chief Executive Officer of Comsat Video Enterprises, Inc., where he joined with the Metromedia Company as initial investors in a company that eventually became Metromedia International Telecommunications, Inc., developing independent cable television and cellular telephone systems in the former Soviet Union.
From 1992 until his death, Wussler ran the Wussler Group, a consulting company.[
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References
External links
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1936 births
2010 deaths
CNN executives
Presidents of CBS Sports
Presidents of CBS News
Businesspeople from Newark, New Jersey
Seton Hall University alumni
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists
Presidents of CBS, Inc.
20th-century American businesspeople
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