barry diller (born february 2, 1942) is an american media executive. he began in the mailroom of the william morris agency, then was hired in 1964 as an assistant to leonard goldberg, then west coast head of abc, and moved with him to new york. put in charge of negotiating broadcast rights to feature films, he was promoted to abc's vice president of development in 1965, where he created the abc movie of the week, a regular strand of 90-minute made-for-television films; in 1973 he became vice president of abc prime-time programming.
from 1974 to 1984 he was chairman and chief executive officer of paramount pictures. the studio's television output in that period included laverne & shirley (1976), taxi (1978) and cheers (1982), and its features included saturday night fever (1977), grease (1978), star trek: the motion picture (1979), ordinary people (1980), raiders of the lost ark (1981), terms of endearment (1983) and beverly hills cop (1984). he also assembled the 1981 ownership agreement among paramount, time inc. and mca that kept the cable channel usa network alive.
from october 1984 to april 1992 he was chairman and chief executive officer of 20th century fox, where he created and launched the fox broadcasting company. the network soft-launched on october 9, 1986 with a late-night talk show and entered prime time on april 5, 1987, and fox greenlit married... with children and the simpsons.
after fox he bought a stake in the qvc shopping network and briefly ran it, lost a bid for paramount communications to viacom, and resigned from qvc in 1995. in 1997-98 he acquired the usa network and universal's other cable and television assets, and in april 1998 became chairman and chief executive officer of usa networks.
related profiles; Leonard H. Goldenson, Movie Studios, Dick Cavett
sources; wikipedia: barry diller, wikipedia: fox broadcasting company, wikipedia: star trek: the motion picture
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