Roone Arledge
Roone Arledge
Roone Pinckney Arledge, Jr.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 to competition with the two other main television networks, NBC and CBS, in the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s. He created many programs still airing today, such as Monday Night Football, ABC World News Tonight, Primetime, Nightline and 20/20...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth8 July 1931
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
One of the towering people in this industry said, why don't you go and make a five-year contract with somebody, make yourself several million dollars and put it away, then go and do whatever you want, work for public TV if you want.
In fact, I had a series of offers which would have brought me a lot of money to make films and package TV programs. There were people who said to me, we'll put a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow, which is a hard thing to turn down.
I want everybody in the news business to think of ABC before they go any place else. If it costs us an extra few thousand dollars to do that, what does it mean?
I think people tuned in a lot to see Barbara when she first came here and they just didn't like the show they saw. I think it was dull. It was sterile.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't mention a Lebanese cabinet crisis, for example, but we don't have to spend two minutes with it from the Middle East.
While there seems to be a major commitment now, historically there hasn't been. It's not an automatic thing where they say we gotta cover that.
We probably paid Cassie a little more than we had to but it was done because I wanted to make a statement that we are here and we're serious.
A lot of people told me that the job of making ABC News competitive was so difficult and so long that it wasn't worth the trouble.
They're indispensable. They're the glue that holds a newscast together.
So you have a built-in dilemma. Do you want to go after older people who watch news or younger people who watch ABC entertainment shows.
As you put together a show you have to assume that you are their only source of national and international news. You have to be the paper of record.
If you don't have the rights, you can't do the show.
He said, 'Of course, you understand we have to offer it to CBS and NBC first because of existing contracts. I was about to slit my throat.
He brought us instant stature, instant integrity, instant quality that ... defined the early struggling days of ABC News.