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
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.
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.
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.
People also don't care about the daily comings and goings of diplomats and yet we must report it.
But if you cover the World Series on the news or do a feature on an Ali boxing match then all of a sudden ears go up all over the place and people say what the hell are you doing. The reason for that is that we're doing something that people are really interested in.
But unlike the setup in most organizations, where there's an administrator on top and creative people or doers underneath, I'm basically a doer and I like to have administrative people underneath me.
People essentially like local news better than network news.
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.
One of the reasons why when Elvis dies or the Son of Sam is captured ABC News' ratings go up is because people who don't normally watch news are watching then. The question is, do you want to attract people who don't watch network news or fight over the people who do?
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 don't think people realize the extent to which TV networks are hurt when they carry public broadcasting. I think the estimate is that they lose a half-million dollars for a half day's programming.
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.