Alex Wallau (born January 11, 1945) is a former president of the ABC

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

. Wallau began his career with ABC in 1976, when he joined the network's Sports division under

Roone Arledge Roone Pinckney Arledge Jr. (July 8, 1931 – December 5, 2002) was an American sports and news broadcasting executive who was president of ABC Sports from 1968 until 1986 and ABC News from 1977 until 1998, and a key part of the company's rise ...

, then head of

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial America ...

. Wallau went on to become a two-time

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

Award-winning producer and director of ABC's sports coverage. He worked primarily on ABC's boxing coverage with announcer Howard Cosell. In 1986, after Cosell's retirement, Wallau became ABC's

boxing Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...

analyst. He was honored by the

Boxing Writers Association of America Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing punches at each other for a ...

as the top television boxing journalist in his first year. Wallau moved into management under

Bob Iger Robert Alan Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American media executive who is chief executive officer (CEO) of the Walt Disney Company. He previously was the president of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) between 1994 and 1995 and p ...

in 1993 and was named President of ABC in 2000, with oversight of 11 divisions, including Entertainment, News, Sports, Finance & Sales. In 2007, he joined

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

's Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Technology Group as Senior Strategic Advisor. In 2017, he moved to the new DTCI division which created new streaming services including Disney+. He retired in 2020. He has served on the Board of Directors of

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

, the

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and the Paley Center for Media. In 2006, Wallau was honored by UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center with their Humanitarian Award. Wallau is a cancer survivor.

References

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-04-15-sp-1613-story.html Living people American television executives 1945 births Boxing commentators Boxing writers American Broadcasting Company executives Presidents of the American Broadcasting Company ESPN executives {{US-tv-bio-stub

See also

References