Lowell White "Bud" Paxson (April 17, 1935 – January 9, 2015) was an American media executive. In 1982, Paxson and his business partner, Roy Speer, co-founded the Home Shopping Club (now called the Home Shopping Network). He established

Pax TV Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American terrestrial television, broadcast television network and Free ad-supported streaming television, FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scri ...

in 1998, a

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 ...

focusing on family-friendly content.

Life and career

Lowell White Paxson was born on April 17, 1935 in

Rochester, New York Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...

. Paxson began his career as an owner of WACK radio, a little 500-watt radio station in the village of Newark, New York. His next attempt at media ownership was radio station WXYJ (AM 1340) and TV station WNYP (channel 26) in

Jamestown, New York Jamestown is a city in southern Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 28,712 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Situated between Lake Erie to the north and the Allegheny National Forest to the south, Jamesto ...

. Paxson, who bought the stations in 1966, attempted to affiliate WNYP with the

CTV Television Network The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned List of Canadian ...

out of Canada (a first for an American television station); by 1969, the TV station had failed. Paxson later emerged as the owner of a small

AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transmi ...

station, WWQT (1470 AM), in

Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city and the county seat of Pinellas County, Florida, United States, west of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and north of St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies T ...

. There, in 1977, an advertiser had plenty of product to sell—avocado-green-colored can openers—but ran out of funds to purchase airtime. Paxson instructed talk-show host

Bob Circosta Bob Circosta is an American businessman and TV host. He is television's first-ever home-shopping host and has achieved over $1 billion in personal product sales on live television. His offices are in Clearwater, Florida, just a few miles from the ...

, who had a talk show from noon until 3:00 p.m., to sell the can openers live over the airwaves, and both men were stunned at the audience response. All 118 can openers were purchased within the hour on August 28, 1977. This started the Suncoast International Bargainers Club. Sensing the sales potential of live, on-air product selling, Paxson and financier Roy Speer co-founded a local

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

channel (channel 52 on Vision Cable) in 1982 that sold products directly to

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

viewers, and then launched nationwide in 1985. The channel was the Home Shopping Club, later Home Shopping Network (currently known as HSN), and Paxson's former radio man

was tapped as the network's first-ever host. HSN soon became a billion dollar juggernaut and began the home shopping / electronic retailing industry. In 1996, the two sold HSN to

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

executive

Barry Diller Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is an American billionaire businessman. He is chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company with Rupert Murdoch and USA Broadcasting. Diller was ind ...

. Paxson then formed Paxson Communications Corporation and bought

radio stations Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio signal, audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a lan ...

, TV stations, and

billboards A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large out-of-home advertising, outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboard ...

, primarily in

. Eventually, he sold those and put the money into PAX TV (currently known as

Ion Television Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American broadcast television network and FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August ...

), a new network of family-friendly TV shows. The channel also reflected Paxson's background as an

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

(since 1985), which he spoke of openly. PAX TV began on August 31, 1998. During the time between the sale of HSN and the founding of PAX TV, Paxson moved his headquarters from

Tampa Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

West Palm Beach West Palm Beach is a city in and the county seat of Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It is located immediately to the west of the adjacent Palm Beach, Florida, Palm Beach, which is situated on a barrier island across the Lake Worth Lag ...

. However, the network never received anywhere near the ratings or

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

revenue of the other networks. In addition, PAX TV lost a few affiliates, such as when Paxson sold its

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

, and

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the head of Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the F ...

, stations to

ACME Communications ACME Communications Inc. was a U.S.-based broadcasting company that was involved in operations of television stations and programming from the late 1990s to 2013. History ACME Communications was co-founded by chairman and original CEO Jamie Ke ...

so that group could affiliate them with

The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...

(though PAX TV programming continued to air overnight on those stations for a few years), and the network was unable to offer their programming in some markets, like St, Louis, Charlotte and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. On July 1, 2005, PAX TV became "i: Independent Television". In November of that year,

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

, which owned 22 percent of i, began a nine-month period during which it could buy the rest of the network. Possibly sensing that NBCU would do so, and beset with lawsuits over the operation of i, Paxson resigned from the company he founded. In addition, Paxson became Ion Media Networks, and NBCU executive R. Brandon Burgess became the

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

. In time, i was rebranded to Ion Television, which since 2020 has been a subsidiary of the

E. W. Scripps Company The E. W. Scripps Company, also known as Scripps, is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglom ...

."E.W. Scripps Buys ION Media For $2.65B, With Berkshire Hathaway Investment"
''Deadline Hollywood'', September 24, 2020, Retrieved September 24, 2020.

Personal life

Paxson's first two marriages, to Jean Blauvelt and Barbara Chapman, ended in divorce. Paxson became a

born-again To be born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelical Christianity, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is d ...

Christian on New Year's Eve 1986. In 1990, he married Marla Bright who survived him after their 25 years of marriage. Paxson had two sons and a daughter from his first marriage and a stepdaughter from his third marriage. He died in

Kalispell, Montana Kalispell (, Salish-Spokane-Kalispel language, Montana Salish: Ql̓ispé, Kutenai language: Kqayaqawakⱡuʔnam) is a city in Montana and the county seat of Flathead County, Montana, United States. The 2020 census put Kalispell's population at ...

in 2015 at the age of 79.

References

External links

*Eisenberg, Bryan (January 10, 2003)
"A Man. A Plan. A Can Opener."
ClickZ Network. * Koepp, Stephen (June 21, 2005)
Can You Believe This Price?
''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''. * Zucco, Thomas (July 30, 2002)
"It started with 112 can openers"
'' St. Petersburg Times''. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Paxson, Bud 1935 births 2015 deaths 20th-century evangelicals 21st-century evangelicals American chief executives American evangelicals American television company founders American television executives New York (state) Republicans Businesspeople from Tampa, Florida People from Newark, New York Businesspeople from Rochester, New York Syracuse University alumni 20th-century American businesspeople

Life and career

Personal life

See also

References

External links