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OBITUARIES Roone Arledge ’52, a television industry leader whose inspired work transformed the way people watch news and sports, died of complications from cancer on December 5, in New York City. Arledge, a New York native, was 71.
The College awarded Arledge its highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Medal, in 1998, and presented him with a John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement in 1979. He became a Columbia trustee in 1999, and is the benefactor of Roone Arledge Auditorium in Alfred Lerner Hall. Arledge was born July 8, 1931, in the Forest Hills section of Queens, and grew up in Merrick on Long Island. His passion for the events of the day developed early in life; his father led family discussions about World War II at the dinner table, provoking Arledge’s interest in current events. Arledge began working at the Dumont network in 1952. After serving in the Army, he returned to television at the NBC affiliate in New York. Arledge won his first Emmy in 1959 for his work on a puppet show starring Shari Lewis — his first assignment as a producer. Arledge spent most of his professional life at ABC; he served as the president of ABC Sports from 1968–86, and later was president and chairman of ABC News. As president of ABC Sports, he led sports programming into television’s mainstream with the televising of the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 and the creation of the prime time Monday Night Football in 1970. The success of Monday Night Football paved the way for other prime-time sports broadcasts, as networks began to seize the opportunities of nighttime sports programming in the years that followed. Arledge also was acclaimed for his work with the highly successful and influential Wide World of Sports, a staple of weekend television programming for decades. Arledge’s work with the Olympics was equally influential. His innovative leadership helped the Olympics grow into a spectacle that attracted sports fans and non-sports fans alike, and a plum for television networks. Arledge paid $200,000 for the American television rights to the 1964 Winter Games in Austria; NBC paid $545 million for the rights to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. Arledge produced all 10 Olympic Games that were broadcast by ABC. During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, when terrorists invaded the Olympic Village and held 11 Israeli athletes hostage, ABC Sports was able to deftly change from covering sports competitions to covering breaking news of global impact. Arledge led ABC’s coverage during the next 17 hours, during which time ABC was the only news outlet with close access to the crisis. The network won 29 Emmy Awards for its news and sports coverage of the event. That experience convinced Arledge that he could succeed in the world of televised news as well as sports. When he became head of ABC News, he revitalized the division, attracting leading newspeople to the network and developing popular programs such as World News Tonight, 20/20 and Nightline, which still are televised after more than 20 years. Through all his successes, Arledge’s greatest mark on the world of broadcasting may well be his introduction of sports to prime time, said Dick Ebersol, an Arledge protégé who became chairman of NBC Sports. “Roone was surely the only television executive of his time who would have dared to put sports in prime time,” he said. “All of the money the athletes are making, all the big money in sports; none of that would be happening if not for Roone.” When Arledge was awarded a Lifetime-Achievement Emmy in September 2002, it was his 37th Emmy. He also won the Alfred I. duPont Golden Baton, four Peabodies and an I.R.T.S. Gold Medal. He holds honorary degrees from Wake Forest University and Boston University, and was a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame. Life magazine chose Arledge as one of the 20th century’s 100 most important Americans, and Sports Illustrated ranked him as the third most important sports figure of the past 40 years. Throughout his career, Arledge said he felt more at home in a broadcast truck or a control room than lounging in the executive suite. “The image that appears on the tube is what TV is all about,” he said. “So for me, the most rewarding and exciting part of my job is making pictures and words that move people.” Arledge’s influence was far-flung. He was a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, A&E, The History Channel and ESPN. He was a member of the President’s Council, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Dean’s Council at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. A firm believer in the concept of using star power to attract an audience, Arledge helped launch the careers of television luminaries including Jim McKay, Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell, Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, Diane Sawyer and Ted Koppel. Gifford, Jennings, Walters, Sawyer and Koppel spoke at Arledge’s memorial service, held in New York on December 9. Richard Wald ’52, the former head of NBC News who met Arledge in 1948 during registration and worked with him at ABC, also spoke at the service, noting that Arledge “loved Columbia University as much as life.” President Lee C. Bollinger remembered Arledge at the annual Yule Log Ceremony on December 5. He noted Arledge’s “tremendous importance to this community, his devotion and his generosity. He was someone you could confide in, learn from.” Bollinger added, “To speak to Roone was to feel welcomed into a mind and a character you didn’t want to leave.” Dean Austin Quigley remembered Arledge similarly. “Roone Arledge was a true son of Columbia — smart, witty, warm and full of creative energy. We will always be grateful to Roone for gracing us with his presence, for invigorating us with his example, and for doing more than his share to make this world a better place for his family, his friends, his colleagues and his fellow students of Columbia College.” Arledge is survived by his third wife, Gigi Shaw, whom he married in 1994, and four children from his first marriage: Roone, Elizabeth, Susan Weston and Patricia Looney. P.W.
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