Bernard Kalb

Charles Kimbrough, a Tony- and Emmy-nominated actor who played a straight-laced news anchor opposite Candice Bergen on the 10 seasons of CBS hit sitcom Murphy Brown between 1988 and 1998, died Jan. 11. He was 86. Kimbrough played newsman Jim Dial on Murphy Brown, earning an Emmy nomination in 1990 for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series. He reprised the role for three episodes in the 2018 reboot.

Alan Komissaroff, SVP of news and politics at Fox News, died Jan. 20, two weeks after suffering a heart attack at his home. He was 47.

Deborah Barak, one of the most prominent, influential and beloved TV business executives of the past three decades, died Jan. 21, after a long battle with cancer. She was 65. Barak’s passing comes just two years after she left CBS at the end of 2020. A skilled negotiator who was highly respected by her peers, Barak — known to all as Debby — led the network’s and studio’s highest-profile negotiations. She brokered a slew of mega talent and show deals while always keeping her cool under pressure in the most chaotic situations.

Lloyd Morriset, who co-founded the Children’s Television Workshop with his close friend and fellow Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney in 1968, died Jan. 23. He continued to serve as chairman of the CTW board until 2000 and remained a board member until he died. Prompted in part by the Civil Rights Movement and the war on poverty, the duo set out to create a TV series that would give disadvantaged children a chance to prepare for school. Thus, they created Sesame Street in 1969. After famously spawning the hit children’s series, the Children’s Television Workshop was later renamed as Sesame Workshop. He was 93.

Cindy Williams, who was among the most recognizable stars in America in the 1970s and 1980s for her role as Shirley opposite Penny Marshall’s Laverne on the beloved sitcom Laverne & Shirley, died Jan. 25. Williams worked with some of Hollywood’s most elite directors in a film career that preceded her full-time move to television, appearing in George Cukor’s 1972 Travels With My Aunt, George Lucas’ 1973 American Graffiti and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation from 1974. But she was by far best known for Laverne & Shirley, the Happy Days spinoff that ran on ABC from 1976 to 1983 that in its prime was among the most popular shows on TV. She was 75.

Billy Packer, an Emmy award-winning college basketball broadcaster who covered 34 Final Fours for NBC and CBS, died Jan. 26. Packer’s broadcasting career coincided with the growth of college basketball. He worked as analyst or color commentator on every Final Four from 1975 to 2008. He received a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio and Sports Analyst in 1993. He was 82.

Raquel Welch, whose emergence from the sea in a skimpy, furry bikini in the film One Million Years B.C. would propel her to international sex symbol status throughout the 1960s and ’70s, died Feb. 15. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1988 for the TV movie Right to Die. She played herself and mocked divas in an episode of Seinfeld, memorably attacking Elaine and rattling Kramer. She was 82.

Barbara Bosson, who received Emmy nominations in five consecutive years for her turn as the divorcee Fay Furillo on the acclaimed NBC drama Hill Street Blues, co-created by her then-husband Steven Bochco, died Feb. 18. She was 83.

Richard Belzer, the longtime stand-up comedian who became one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: SVU, died Feb. 19. He was 78. For more than two decades and across 10 series — even including appearances on 30 Rock and Arrested Development — Belzer played the wise-cracking, acerbic homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories. Belzer first played Munch on a 1993 episode of Homicide and last played him in 2016 on SVU.

Red McCombs, a former Texas used car dealer who became a billionaire entrepreneur by venturing into an array of successful businesses, including the media giant Clear Channel Communications and several professional sports teams, died Feb. 19. He was 95.

Robert Blake, the Emmy award-winning performer who went from acclaim for his acting to notoriety when he was tried and acquitted in the killing of his wife, died March 9 at age 89. Blake, star of the 1970s ABC show, Baretta, had once hoped for a comeback, but he never recovered from the long ordeal which began with the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a restaurant on May 4, 2001. The story of their strange marriage, the child it produced and its violent end was a Hollywood tragedy played out in court.

Perry Cross, Johnny Carson‘s first producer on The Tonight Show before he exited to run an ABC program hosted by Jerry Lewis that came and went after 13 episodes, died March 9. He was 95.

Royal Blakeman, a president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the 1960s, died March 26. He was 99. Blakeman was president of the New York chapter of NATAS in 1963-65 and then as the seventh national president of the organization from 1966 to 1968. For a quarter-century, he was general counsel at the Recording Academy, which in 2003 presented him with its Trustees Award.

Mark Russell, a piano-playing comedian and political satirist, died on March 30. For more than 50 years, Russell took shots at all sectors of the political spectrum with stand-up monologues and song parodies. He was best known for his PBS specials, which he taped six times a year from 1975 to 2004.

Bill Lynch, best known as the anchor of CBS News Radio’s signature program World News Roundup, which he helmed for 15 years, died April 4. He was 77.

Herb Lazarus, a veteran international TV distribution executive who worked for 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures TV before launching his own shingle, died April 18 in Los Angeles. All told, Lazarus worked in the entertainment industry for more than 65 years, across 13 different companies. He was 88.

Barry Humphries, a Tony Award-winning comedian internationally renowned for his garish stage persona Dame Edna Everage, a condescending and imperfectly-veiled snob whose evolving character delighted audiences over seven decades, died April 22. He was 89.

Robert Crutchfield, who was a top publicity executive in television for MTM Enterprises, Lorimar and Universal, April 7. A onetime Houston radio deejay and 20th Century Fox contract player, Crutchfield in 1974 began an eight-year stint as VP marketing and publicity for MTM Enterprises, where he handled such acclaimed series as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, The Bob Newhart Show, Lou Grant, Phyllis, Rhoda and The White Shadow. He was 85.

Harry Belafonte, the civil rights and entertainment giant who began as a groundbreaking actor and singer and became an activist, humanitarian and conscience of the world, died April 25. He won a Tony Award in 1954 for his starring role in John Murray Anderson’s Almanac and five years later became the first Black performer to win an Emmy for the CBS special Tonight with Belafonte. He was 96.

Jerry Springer, the onetime Cincinnati mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show featured a three-ring circus of dysfunctional guests willing to bare all — sometimes literally — as they brawled and hurled obscenities before a raucous audience, died April 27. At its peak, The Jerry Springer Show was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with lurid drama. Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favorite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show. He was 79.

Newton N. Minow, who as FCC chairman in the early 1960s famously proclaimed that network television was a “vast wasteland,” died May 6 at 97. Though Minow remained in the FCC post just two years, he left a permanent stamp on the broadcasting industry through government steps to foster satellite communications, the passage of a law mandating UHF reception on TV sets and his outspoken advocacy for quality in television. He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

George Watson, a former Washington bureau chief, White House correspondent and vice president for ABC News, died June 1. After serving as a correspondent and bureau chief in Moscow and London, where he covered major events in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Watson returned to the U.S. in 1975 as ABC News’ White House correspondent. A year later, he was named Washington bureau chief and vice president, a role he held two different times, spanning 12 years total. He was 86.

Pat Robertson, a religious broadcaster who turned a tiny Virginia television station into the global Christian Broadcasting Network, tried a run for president and helped make religion central to Republican Party politics in America through his Christian Coalition, died June 8. For more than a half-century, Robertson was a familiar presence in American living rooms, known for his 700 Club TV show, and in later years, his televised pronouncements of God’s judgment, blaming natural disasters on everything from homosexuality to the teaching of evolution. The money poured in as he solicited donations, his influence soared, and he brought a huge following with him when he moved directly into politics by seeking the GOP presidential nomination in 1988. He was 93.

Thomas W. Sarnoff, who had a six-decade career at NBC as the youngest son of RCA/NBC media mogul David Sarnoff, died June 4. He was hired at NBC in 1952 as an assistant to the director of finance and operations, and in 1957 he became VP production and business affairs. From 1965-77, he served as staff executive VP West Coast and president of NBC Entertainment Corp., reporting to the president of NBC. During that period, Sarnoff negotiated contracts for NBC’s Burbank studio and production deals with network talents like Bob Hope and Col. Tom Parker on behalf of Elvis Presley’s TV specials. He also oversaw the production and worldwide touring of live, all-family arena shows that included Peter Pan and Disney on Parade, a partnership with Walt Disney Productions. Following his career with NBC, Sarnoff created Sarnoff International Enterprises, which produced content like the Yabba Dabba Doo live-arena tour that featured Hanna-Barbera characters. He was 96.

Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite scandals over his sex-fueled parties and allegations of corruption, died June 12. He was 86.

Daniel Ellsberg, the history-making whistleblower who by leaking the Pentagon Papers revealed longtime government doubts and deceit about the Vietnam War and inspired acts of retaliation by President Richard Nixon that helped lead to his resignation, died June 16. He was 92.

David Bohrman, a longtime producer and news executive who was responsible for innovations in live and special events and breaking news, including at CNN and other networks, died June 25. “He was the creator of more news programming than almost any other producer working in television news today,” CNN’s leadership team wrote in a memo to employees. He was 69.

Alan Arkin, the wry character actor who demonstrated his versatility in everything from farcical comedy to chilling drama, in feature films and TV series, died June 30. He was 89.

Dr. Frank Field, a pioneering former WNBC New York meteorologist and health reporter, died July 1. He was 100. Field began his career in New York at WNBC in 1958. He quickly rose to national prominence when Johnny Carson decided needling “NBC’s crack meteorologist” would be good fun and he became a regular guest on The Tonight Show. Field learned meteorology at Brown University and MIT and served as an Army Air Force meteorology officer in the European theater during World War II. He also earned a degree in geology at Brooklyn College, a bachelor’s degree in optometry at Columbia University, and a doctorate on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He deployed those broad skills at NBC, adding health and science reporting to his broadcast portfolio. After 25 years with WNBC, Field left to join rival WCBS New York, and ended his television career at WWOR New York in 2004.

Bill Geddie, the legendary TV producer known for co-creating ABC’s The View and being Barbara Walters’ longtime producer, died July 21 at age 68. Geddie served as executive producer for The View for 17 years and was part of the talk show’s launch in 1997. He also served a short stint as the producer of the syndicated Tamron Hall from 2019 to 2020. Geddie was a partner in Walters’ BarWall Productions for 25 years and was the owner of Bill Geddie Productions. He also coproduced, wrote and directed programs such as the Barbara Walters Specials and The 10 Most Fascinating People.

Paul Reubens, the actor and comedian whose character Pee-wee Herman became a cultural phenomenon through films and TV shows, died July 30 after a six-year struggle with cancer that he did not make public. The character with his too-tight gray suit, white chunky loafers and red bow tie was best known for the film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and the TV series Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Herman created Pee-wee when he was part of the Los Angeles improv group The Groundlings in the late 1970s. The live Pee-wee Herman Show debuted at a Los Angeles theater in 1981 and was a success with both kids during matinees and adults at a midnight show. HBO would air the show as a special. His television series, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, ran for five seasons, earned 22 Emmys and attracted not only children but adults to Saturday-morning TV.

William H. Dilday Jr., a Boston TV executive who moved to Jackson, Miss., in 1972 to manage the city’s NBC affiliate, becoming the country’s first Black person to run a commercial television station, died on July 27. He was 85. Dilday was 34, with a mere three years’ experience in the TV business, when he got a call from a nonprofit organization in Jackson, asking if he would be interested in taking over at WLBT, Mississippi’s largest station. The inquiry came after eight years of litigation by the United Church of Christ and a group of Black citizens against the station, which was owned by a local insurance company. Like many TV stations in the Jim Crow-era South, WLBT had given scant coverage to the civil rights movement, or to the lives and concerns of Black Mississippians in general. Dilday began making changes almost immediately. He hired a Black woman, Dorothy Gibbs, to create an integrated children’s show, Our Playmates. Within his first year he increased Black employment at the station to 35% from 15%, including as anchors, camera operators and news editors. He created an investigative series, Probe, that in 1976 won a Peabody Award for a series on political corruption in the state. After settling into his position in Jackson, Dilday joined a group of mostly Black investors in 1973 to buy a TV station in St. Croix, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, making it the first Black-owned commercial station in the country. He was a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists, created in 1975. Dilday moved from WLBT to Jackson’s CBS affiliate, WJTV, in 1985, where he stayed as station manager until retiring in 2000.

Johnny Hardwick, who voiced the conspiracy-minded character Dale Gribble on King of the Hill, died Aug. 8 at his home in Austin, Texas. Hardwick and his character with the distinctive Texas drawl had been with the Emmy-winning animated series since its debut in 1997 through its final episode on Fox in 2010.

Geoffrey Neigher, the TV writer-producer who penned episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda and Murder One and shared an Emmy for outstanding drama series for his work on Picket Fences, died Aug. 10. He was 78.

Bob Barker, the enduring, dapper game show host who became a household name over a half century of hosting Truth or Consequences and The Price Is Right, died Aug. 26. Barker was working in radio in 1956 when producer Ralph Edwards invited him to audition as the new host of NBC’s Truth or Consequences, a daytime game show in which audience members had to do wacky stunts — the “consequence” — if they failed to answer a question — the “truth,” which was always the silly punchline to a riddle no one was ever meant to furnish. Barker stayed with Truth or Consequences for 18 years — including several years in a syndicated version. Meanwhile, he began hosting a resurrected version of The Price Is Right on CBS in 1972. It would become TV’s longest-running game show and the last on a broadcast network of what in TV’s early days had numbered dozens. In all, he taped more than 5,000 shows in his career. He said he was retiring in 2007 because “I’m just reaching the age where the constant effort to be there and do the show physically is a lot for me. … Better (to leave) a year too soon than a year too late.” Comedian Drew Carey was chosen to replace him. Barker was back with Carey for one show broadcast in April 2009. He was there to promote the publication of his memoir, Priceless Memories, in which he summed up his joy from hosting the show as the opportunity “to watch people reveal themselves and to watch the excitement and humor unfold.” He was 99.

Don Browne, a former NBC News and Telemundo executive, died Aug. 30. He was 80 years old. Browne retired from NBCUniversal in June 2011 after a six-year stint as president of Telemundo, and before that serving as the Spanish-language network’s chief operating officer. He had been with NBCU for more than 30 years, first joining the company as NBC News’ Miami bureau chief in 1979 after more than a decade at CBS News. In 1989, Browne was named executive news director, where he was the executive in charge of NBC’s Today show, and in 1991 became EVP of NBC News. While at NBC News he also oversaw the creation of Dateline.

David McCallum, who became a teen heartthrob in the NBC hit The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s and was the eccentric medical examiner in the long-running CBS series NCIS 40 years later, died Sept. 25. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. debuted in 1964 with Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, an agent in a secretive, high-tech squad of crime fighters whose initials stood for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Despite the Cold War, the agency had an international staff, with McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, Solo’s Russian sidekick. The series lasted until 1968. McCallum returned to television in 2003 in another series with an agency known by its initials — CBS’s NCIS. He played Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard, a bookish pathologist for the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, an agency handling crimes involving the Navy or the Marines. McCallum’s work with U.N.C.L.E. brought him two Emmy nominations, and he got a third as an educator struggling with alcoholism in a 1969 Hallmark Hall of Fame drama called Teacher, Teacher. He was 90.

Jonathan Dolgen, the tough-minded dealmaker and skillful numbers-cruncher who spent a decade at Viacom working for Sumner Redstone and alongside Paramount Pictures head Sherry Lansing, died Oct. 9. A native of Queens and a former Wall Street lawyer, Dolgen also held top positions at Columbia Pictures, Fox and Sony Pictures before becoming the first top executive recruited by Redstone for the newly merged entertainment conglomerate forged by Viacom’s $8.2 billion purchase of Paramount Communications. He was 78.

Suzanne Somers, the effervescent blonde actor known for playing Chrissy Snow on ABC’s Three’s Company and who became an entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author, died Oct. 15. She appeared in many television shows in the 1970s, including The Rockford Files, Magnum Force and The Six Million Dollar Man, but her most famous part came with Three’s Company, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1984 — though her participation ended in 1981. In 1980, after four seasons, she said she asked for a raise from $30,000 an episode to $150,000 an episode, which she described as comparable to what co-star John Ritter was getting paid. “The show’s response was, ‘Who do you think you are?’” Somers told People in 2020. “They said, ‘John Ritter is the star.’” She was promptly phased out and soon fired. Somers took the break as an opportunity to pursue new avenues, including a Las Vegas act, hosting a talk show and becoming an entrepreneur. In the 1990s, she also became the spokesperson for the ThighMaster. The decade also saw her return to network television in the 1990s, most famously on Step by Step, which aired on ABC’s youth-targeted TGIF lineup. The network also aired a biopic of her life, starring her, called Keeping Secrets. Somers was also a prolific author, writing books on aging, menopause, beauty, wellness, sex and cancer. She was 76.

Edward Bleier, who brought Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and other Looney Tunes characters to generations of Saturday morning TV viewers before becoming a prime mover in the rise of cable television and the transformation of Time Warner Cable into an industry giant, died Oct. 17. He turned 94 the day before. A former journalist who began his career in newspapers and radio, Bleier was an innovator who foresaw industry-changing technologies and the need for fresh content to serve the emerging cable television market. At ABC and later at Warner Bros. Television, he gained a reputation for imaginative but also practical strategic thinking that helped usher in a new television era. From 1986 to 2000, he was president of a Warner Bros. division that developed basic cable networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV and The Movie Channel. He was credited with achieving record-breaking sales of vintage movies and older television series, shown in reruns, annually surpassing the income those productions had earned when first released.

Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated Friends actor whose sarcastic, but lovable Chandler Bing was among television’s most famous and most quotable characters, died Oct. 28 at 54. Perry’s 10 seasons on NBC’s Friends made him one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer. Friends ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each. Perry was open about his long and public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his 2022 million-selling memoir: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”

Philip Meyer, a former reporter who pioneered new ways to incorporate data, quantitative methods and computers into investigative journalism, died Nov. 4. He was 93. With a career spanning the latter half of the 20th century and several years into the 21st, Meyer was at the center of a revolution within the craft and business of journalism — a revolution that, to a large degree, he helped shape. Meyer was among the few reporters in the mid-1950s who saw the growing power of computers to crunch data and produce new insight into complex questions. In 1968 he shared in the Pulitzer Prize for local general or spot news reporting, which went to The Detroit Free Press for its coverage of a riot the year before in which he seized on a claim, common in the news media, that the rioters had mostly been poor, uneducated Black migrants from the South. He gathered as much demographic data as he could, ran it through a computer and got a much different picture: The rioters were more likely to be locally born, and were spread evenly across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Marty Krofft, the savvy businessman who partnered with his older brother Sid to amass an entertainment empire fueled by such mind-blowing kids TV shows as The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost, died Nov. 25. He was 86. The pair already were well-known theatrical puppeteers when they were recruited in 1968 to design the costumes for the live-action portion of NBC’s The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. In 1970, the network asked them to create their own Saturday morning kids show, and the brothers came up with H.R. Pufnstuf, about a shipwrecked boy who lands on a magical island. The Kroffts followed Pufnstuf with The Bugaloos (1970-72), the Claymation series Lidsville (1971-73), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973-75) and Land of the Lost (1974-76). Those shows were wildly popular in syndication as well. Long after other smaller kids producers like Hanna-Barbera had sold out to conglomerates, the Kroffts were still developing shows as the last of the great 1960s independents. As late as 2015, they had a hit on Nickelodeon with Mutt & Stuff.

Robert H. Precht, who for more than a decade produced The Ed Sullivan Show, the CBS Sunday night variety extravaganza that for 23 years brought singers, comedians, rock bands, jugglers, animal acts and the Italian mouse puppet Topo Gigio into the living rooms of millions of viewers, died on Nov. 26. He was 93.

Norman Lear, the television writer and producer who introduced political and social commentary into situation comedy with All in the Family and other shows, proving that it was possible to be topical as well as funny while attracting millions of viewers, died Dec. 5 at 101. He reigned at the top of the television world through the 1970s and into the early ’80s, leaving a lasting mark with shows that brought the sitcom into the real world. Lear’s shows sent different messages, far more in tune with what was actually happening in those turbulent times. His crowning achievement was All in the Family, and his greatest creation was Archie Bunker, the focus of that show and one of the most enduring characters in television history. All in the Family sent a shock through the sleepy world of the sitcom with one tart, topical episode after another from the moment it premiered on CBS on Jan. 12, 1971. Lear went on to create a television empire and to become politically active, notably with his founding of the liberal advocacy organization People for the American Way, the kind of organization that Archie Bunker would have enjoyed sneering at. The Lear philosophy was further developed in two shows built around characters who originally appeared on All in the Family: Maude and The Jeffersons. Not all of Mr. Lear’s shows grew out of Archie’s universe. One that did not, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, raised as many eyebrows as All in the Family. Among his many other shows were Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time and Good Times.

André Braugher, the two-time Emmy-winning star of series including Homicide: Life on the Street, Men of a Certain Age and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, died Dec. 11 at 61. Braugher’s first film role came alongside Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington in the Ed Zwick-directed Glory. While Braugher peppered his résumé with comedies, many will remember him for his ferocious portrayal of Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. Put him in “the box,” sweating out and outsmarting crime suspects in the interrogation room, and you were looking at a weekly dose of tour de force acting, as good as it got on television during that time. He won an Emmy for that show he starred in from 1992 to 1998. For eight seasons, Braugher starred alongside Andy Samberg in the hit comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and he won two Critics Choice Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and received four Emmy Award nominations for his role as Captain Ray Holt in the series that began on Fox and later moved to NBC. Before that, he starred on the two seasons of acclaimed TNT series Men of a Certain Age alongside Ray Romano and Scott Bakula. He received two Emmy nominations for his role as an anxiety-stricken diabetic dad on the show. He also starred in the 2008 sci-fi miniseries The Andromeda Strain alongside Benjamin Bratt and Eric McCormack for A&E.

Tom Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers and the co-host of one of the most socially conscious and groundbreaking television shows in the history of the medium, died Dec. 27 at 86. When The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour debuted on CBS in the fall of 1967 it was an immediate hit, to the surprise of many who had assumed the network’s expectations were so low it positioned their show opposite NBC’s top-rated Bonanza. But the Smothers Brothers would prove a turning point in television history, with its sharp eye for pop culture trends and young rock stars and its daring sketches — ridiculing the Establishment, railing against the Vietnam War and portraying members of the era’s hippie counterculture as gentle, fun-loving spirits — found an immediate audience with young baby boomers. The show reached No. 16 in the ratings in its first season. It also drew the ire of network censors, and after years of battling with the brothers over the show’s creative content, the network abruptly canceled the program in 1970, accusing the siblings of failing to submit an episode in time for the censors to review. After the show was canceled, the brothers sued CBS for $31 million and were awarded $775,000. Their battles with the network were chronicled in the 2002 documentary Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Nearly 40 years later, when Smothers was awarded an honorary Emmy for his work on the show, he jokingly thanked the writers he said had gotten him fired. He also showed that the years had not dulled his outspokenness.

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Sidney Poitier, winner of the best actor Oscar in 1964 for Lilies of the Field, died Jan. 6 at 94. Before Poitier, the son of Bahamian tomato farmers, no Black actor had a sustained career as a lead performer or could get a film produced based on his own star power. Before Poitier, few Black actors were permitted a break from the stereotypes of bug-eyed servants and grinning entertainers. Before Poitier, Hollywood filmmakers rarely even attempted to tell a Black person’s story.

Dwayne Hickman, an actor, producer and television director best known for his starring role in the 1950s and ’60s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, died Jan. 9. He began screen acting at a young age with film appearances in The Boy with the Green Hair and 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath. As a teenager, he starred as Chuck MacDonald in TV’s The Bob Cummings Show, acting alongside the titular comedian across the sitcom’s four-year run. In 1959, Hickman earned the marquee role on Dobie Gillis. The actor starred in all 148 episodes of the 20th Century Fox sitcom. As the first major television series to feature teenagers as its primary characters, Dobie Gillis solidified Hickman as one of the first and primary cultural emblems for the generation of Baby Boomers in the 1950’s and ’60s. He was 87.

Bob Saget, the actor-comedian known for his role as beloved single dad Danny Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House and as the wisecracking host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, died Jan. 9 while on a stand-up tour. He was 65.

Tom Cookerly, longtime GM of ABC affiliate WJLA Washington, head of Allbritton Communications’ broadcast group, former chair of the Television Bureau of Advertising and past chair of ABC Television Afilliates Association, died Jan. 16. He was 94.

Louie Anderson, whose four-decade career as a comedian and actor included his unlikely, Emmy-winning performance as mom to twin adult sons in the FX series Baskets, died Jan. 21. He was 68. Anderson won his Emmy in 2016 and received three consecutive Emmy nods for his performance. He was a familiar face elsewhere on TV, including as host of a revival of the game show Family Feud from 1999 to 2002, and on comedy specials and in frequent latenight talk show appearances.

Howard Hesseman, who played the radio disc jockey Dr. Johnny Fever on the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati and the actor-turned-history teacher Charlie Moore on Head of the Class, died Jan. 29. He was 81. Hesseman, who had himself been a radio DJ in the ’60s, earned two Emmy nominations for playing Johnny Fever on CBS’s WKRP, which ran for four seasons from 1978-1982. The role made Hesseman a counterculture icon at a time when few hippie characters made it onto network television.

Gloria Rojas, who was billed as New York City’s first Latina broadcast journalist when she was hired by WCBS-TV in 1968, and who went on to work as a journalist for every major network affiliate in the city for 23 years, died on Feb. 2. She was 82.

Walter E. Dellinger III was acting solicitor general in 1996-97 when he argued successfully in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC before the Supreme Court that the 1992 Cable Act’s requirement that cable operators reserve channels for local broadcast TV (must carry) was a content-neutral regulation of speech that served three important government interests: preserving free over-the-air TV, promoting a diversity of information sources and promoting TV competition. In a 5-4 decision, the court agreed. He died Feb. 16 at 80.

Bob Beckel, a political analyst and former Fox News host, died Feb. 21. He was 73. Beckel co-hosted, along with Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld, Fox’s long-running panel talk show The Five until he was dropped in 2017 over an insensitive remark made to a Black employee, the network said at the time. He had previously left the network in 2015 after undergoing major back surgery.

Renee Poussaint, longtime WJLA Washington anchor, died March 4 at 77. She was co-anchor of the 6 and 11 p.m. WJLA news beginning in 1978 and held that position for more than a decade. A trailblazing journalist, Pouissant began her career in broadcasting in 1970 working in Chicago, ultimately substituting for Peter Jennings on ABC World News Tonight. She was also a former network correspondent for CBS and ABC News, winning three national Emmy awards for her work on ABC’s PrimeTime Live for reporting, writing and interviewing.

Keizo Kiyohara, the founder of FOR-A Corp. in Japan in 1971, died March 7. The company is a major manufacturer of video and audio systems to the broadcast post-production, and professional video markets. He was 88.

Emilio Delgado, the actor and singer who for 45 years was a warm and familiar presence in children’s lives and a rare Latino face on American television as fix-it shop owner Luis on Sesame Street, died March 10. He also played a recurring character on the newspaper drama Lou Grant from 1979 to 1982, and made multiple appearances on Quincy M.E., Falcon Crest and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was 81.

Pierre Zakrzewski, a video journalist for Fox News was killed in Ukraine when the vehicle he was traveling in outside of Kyiv with another reporter came under fire on March 15 following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. Zakrzewski, who was based in London, had covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria for Fox.

Av Westin (r) with Hugh Downs

Av Westin, an influential television producer who rose from copy boy at CBS News for Edward R. Murrow in the 1940s to help make ABC’s 20/20 newsmagazine a perennial winner of Emmy Awards, died on March 12. He had spent a year as the executive producer of ABC’s World News Tonight when he took over 20/20 in 1979. Over the next seven years, the program won more than 30 news and documentary Emmy Awards, including 11 in 1981. He was 92.

Stephen Wilhite, the inventor of the internet-popular short-video format, the GIF, died March 14 at 74. He won a Webby lifetime achievement award in 2013 for inventing the GIF, which decades after its creation became omnipresent in memes and on social media, often used as a cheeky representation of a cultural moment.

Marvin J. Chomsky, a four-time Emmy-winning director with credits including Roots, Star Trek and Hawaii Five-O, died March 28. He won his Emmys for his work on the 1978 miniseries Holocaust, the 1980 telefilm Attica, the 1982 telefilm Inside the Third Reich and the 1986 miniseries Peter the Great. He collected five other nominations during his career. He was 92.

Estelle Harris, who hollered her way into TV history as George Costanza’s short-fused mother on NBC’s Seinfeld and voiced Mrs. Potato Head in the Toy Story franchise, died April 2. She was 93.

Bruce Johnson, who anchored the news on CBS affiliate WUSA Washington for 44 years, died on April 3. He was 71. Johnson, who announced his retirement from WUSA about two years earlier, completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree before landing at what was then WTOP-TV at age 25.

Francis “Fran” La Maina, the former president and chief operating officer of Dick Clark Productions, died April 9. He joined Dick Clark Productions in 1966 as head of the accounting department. Over the years, he worked numerous positions working his way up the company. He was appointed president-COO in 1986 and guided the company as it became publicly traded. He was 82.

Gilbert Gottfried, the actor and standup comic known for his raw, scorched voice and crude jokes, died April 12. He first came to national attention with frequent appearances on MTV in its early days and with a brief stint in the cast of Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. Gottfried also did frequent voice work for children’s television and movies, most famously playing the parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin.

Jim Hartz, the low-key, folksy newsman who hosted Today with Barbara Walters in the mid-1970s, less than halfway through his three-decade television career, died on April 17. He was 82. At 24, he was hired away from KOTV Tulsa, Okla., by NBC and became evening anchor at WNBC New York. After Today, he anchored at WRC Washington, hosted Over Easy, Innovation and Asia Now at PBS. He was 82.

Bill Carroll, a consistently amiable and helpful presence at rep firm Katz Media for three decades, died April 27. He was a former Rochester, N.Y. TV station manager who moved in 1985 to the role of consulting station programmers for the Katz Television. He left Katz in 2017 and ran his own consultancy. He was 70.

Andrew Whiteside, president of antenna and signal-transmissions solutions company Dielectric, now owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, died April 30 in a climbing accident at Independence Monument in the Colorado National Monument National Park. He was 67. Whiteside authored numerous technical papers and articles on transmitter technology and was deeply involved in the FCC Spectrum Repack initiative for U.S. broadcasters and had been integral in the development and rollout of the ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV transmission standard.

Richard C. Wald, a former president of NBC News and a senior vice president at ABC News who worked behind the scenes with Tom Brokaw, Jane Pauley, Ted Koppel and Roone Arledge, died May 13. Wald was involved with the creation of Nightline, the signature ABC News latenight program that grew out of special coverage in 1979 on the taking of U.S. embassy staff in Tehran by Iranian militants. Wald gave the show, which devoted itself to a single topic each night under the aegis of Koppel and remains on the air at ABC in modernized form, its name, trying to create an analogue to the “morning line” at a race track. He also put Brokaw on NBC’s Today, and hired Pauley, while working to modernize the format of NBC Nightly News. He was 92.

Thomas S. Murphy, who as chairman and chief executive of Capital Cities Communications stunned Wall Street in 1985 by acquiring the much larger American Broadcasting Co. for $3.5 billion, then 10 years later startled Wall Street again by selling the resultant company to Disney for $19 billion, died May 25. Murphy’s business success can be summed up in a single statistic: Capital Cities stock increased in value 2,000 times between 1957, when the company first sold stock to the public, and 1995, when Disney bought it. He was 96.

William O’Shaughnessy, chairman of Whitney Global Media, owner of Westchester, N.Y., radio stations WVOX-AM and WVIP-FM, author of several books and strident champion of local broadcasting and broadcasters’ First Amendment rights, died May 28. He began his career in 1957 at WVIP-AM (then in Mt. Kisco, N.Y.) where he became the station’s top advertising salesman at the age of 21. From there he moved to WNEW-AM New York. He later was able to buy WVIP and added WVOX to his portfolio. O’Shaughnessy was active in broadcasting circles, serving as past president of the New York State Broadcasters Association, a member of the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Board and as a senior director of the Broadcasters Foundation of America. For the past 13 years, he also served as the chairman of the Foundation’s Guardian Fund, which raises funds for broadcasters who have fallen on hard times or have been impacted by unexpected health issues. He was 84.

Adam Wade, the suave singer and actor who registered three top 10 hits on the Billboard 100 in 1961 and appeared in films including Shaft, Crazy Joe and Claudine before making history as a game show host, died July 7. In June 1975, Wade became the first Black person to host a network game show with Musical Chairs, created by Don Kirshner for CBS. He was 87.

Larry Storch, the rubber-faced comic whose long career in theater, movies and television was capped by his F Troop role as zany Cpl. Agarn in the 1960s spoof of Western frontier TV shows, died July 8. Although F Troop lasted only two seasons on ABC, from 1965 to 1967, it became a cult favorite in reruns. While F Troop brought him lasting fame, Storch appeared in scores of films and TV shows both before and after the show. He also enjoyed a long career in theater and as a comic at resorts in New York State’s Catskill Mountains area. He was 99.

Rehan Aslam, news director of WABC Los Angeles, died July 9 of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. He was 47. Aslam began his broadcasting career in 2001 at WEWS Cleveland, Ohio. He then went on to produce at WJW Cleveland and executive produce at WFLD Chicago. Aslam joined KTRK Houston in 2014 as assistant news director, before being named vice president and news director in 2019. He joined WABC in 2021.

Taurean Blacque, an Emmy-nominated actor who was known for his role as a detective on the 1980s NBC drama Hill Street Blues, died July 21. The New Jersey-native began his acting career at the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. His training at the institute helped him secure guest roles on television series including Sanford and Son, What’s Happening, Good Times, Taxi and The Bob New Hart Show. He was 82.

Tony Dow, best known for portraying Wally Cleaver on TV’s Leave It To Beaver, died July 27 at 77. In addition to playing one of pop culture’s most iconic older brothers — a role he played from 1957 to 1963, then reprised in The New Leave It to Beaver from 1983 to 1989 — Dow’s career included high-profile appearances on shows like Diagnosis Murder, Knight Rider, Lassie and Mod Squad.

Burt Metcalfe, the revered TV producer who worked on all 11 seasons of CBS’s M*A*S*H, died July 27. He was an actor turned director-producer who was recruited to work on the Korean War comedy by director Gene Reynolds, who launched the series adaptation of Robert Altman’s 1970 black comedy released by 20th Century Fox. Metcalfe started out as an associate producer and rose to showrunner for the show’s final six seasons. He also directed 31 episodes of the series’ 251 installments. A native of Saskatoon, Saskatchewon, Metcalfe began his career in the 1950s and ’60s as an actor with guest shots on series including The Ray Milland Show, Whirlybirds, Have Gun, Will Travel, Death Valley Days, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, The Outer Limits, The fugitive, 12 O’Clock High and Father of the Bride. He was 87.

Nichelle Nichols, who broke barriers for Black women in Hollywood when she played communications officer Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek television series, died July 30 at 89. Her role in the 1966-69 series earned Nichols a lifelong position of honor with the series’ rabid fans, known as Trekkers and Trekkies. It also earned her accolades for breaking stereotypes that had limited Black women to acting roles as servants and included an interracial onscreen kiss with co-star William Shatner that was unheard of at the time. Like other original cast members, Nichols also appeared in six big-screen spinoffs starting in 1979 with Star Trek: The Motion Picture and frequented Star Trek fan conventions. She also served for many years as a NASA recruiter, helping bring minorities and women into the astronaut corps. In 1992, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Pat Carroll, a comedic television mainstay for decades, Emmy-winner for Caesar’s Hour and the voice of Ursula in The Little Mermaid, died July 30. Her first film role came in 1948 in Hometown Girl but she found her stride in television. She won an Emmy for her work on the sketch comedy series Caesar’s Hour in 1956, was a regular on Make Room for Daddy with Danny Thomas, a guest star on The DuPont Show with June Allyson and a variety show regular stopping by The Danny Kaye Show, The Red Skelton Show and The Carol Burnett Show. She also played one of the wicked stepsisters in the 1965 television production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with Lesley Ann Warren. She was 95.

Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, whose dulcet tones provided the soundtrack of summer while entertaining and informing Dodgers fans in Brooklyn and Los Angeles for 67 years, died Aug. 2. As the longest tenured broadcaster with a single team in pro sports history, Scully saw it all and called it all. He began in the 1950s era of Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, on to the 1960s with Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, into the 1970s with Steve Garvey and Don Sutton, and through the 1980s with Orel Hershiser and Fernando Valenzuela. In the 1990s, it was Mike Piazza and Hideo Nomo, followed by Kershaw, Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig in the 21st century. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that year, and also had Dodger Stadium’s press box named for him in 2001. The street leading to the stadium’s main gate was named in his honor in 2016. That same year he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. He was 94.

John Severino, a top ABC executive in Los Angeles and New York who also headed the CBS station group and served as president of the Prime Ticket regional sports network, died Aug. 3. In between his four-year stint atop ABC in New York, Severino was general manager of the network’s Los Angeles O&O KABC from 1974-81 and 1986-88. In local news circles, Severino was known for implementing and developing the “Eyewitness News” format at stations including WLS-TV Chicago, where he was VP and GM. Critics called it too sensational, but it proved popular with viewers. He was 85.

Jim Thompson, the Broadcasters Foundation of America’s longtime president and veteran broadcaster, died Aug. 14. Thompson took over the reins of the Broadcasters Foundation in 2009, guiding the charitable organization to more than quadruple the amount of financial aid it distributes to radio and TV professionals from $400,000 to nearly $2 million last year. Thompson had been president and CEO of Group W Radio, the second largest radio company in the country during his leadership, and along with Mike Craven was co-owner of Liberty Broadcasting, a 19-station radio group concentrated on the East Coast. He began his broadcasting career as an account executive at KYW-TV Philadelphia in 1971, where he rose to vice president and general manager. He was 75.

Len Dawson, legendary NFL quarterback and former sports director at KMBC Kansas City died Aug. 24. Dawson led the Kansas City Chiefs to the Super Bowl in 1967 and 1970, the team beating the Vikings in the big game in ‘70. Dawson was named MVP of Super Bowl IV in 1970. Dawson was named sports director at KMBC in 1966, while he was still playing for the Chiefs. He spent four decades there. Dawson also worked on Inside the NFL at HBO from 1978 to 2001, and was a football analyst at NBC. He was 87.

Bernard Shaw, CNN’s chief anchor for two decades and a pioneering Black broadcast journalist best remembered for calmly reporting the beginning of the Gulf War in 1991 as missiles flew around him in Baghdad, died Sept. 7. Shaw was at CNN for 20 years and was known for remaining cool under pressure. Shaw was a former U.S. Marine who worked as a reporter at CBS and ABC News before taking on the chief anchor role at CNN when Ted Turner started the cable news network in 1980. He was 82.

Lowry Mays, whose accidental purchase of a San Antonio radio station propelled him into the nation’s largest owner of radio stations, died Sept. 12. Mays was a prosperous petroleum engineer and investment banker when he agreed to co-sign a note to purchase a San Antonio FM station in 1972 but ended up owning it. The purchase grew into Clear Channel Communications as it continued to buy other radio stations and billboard companies. Now named iHeartMedia, the San Antonio-based company owns more than 860 radio stations and syndication networks that carried such conservative talk show hosts as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. The Mays family sold its interest in what was then Clear Channel Communications in 2008 when it was taken private. He was 87.

Nick Holonyak Jr., whose development in 1962 of the first practical visible-spectrum light-emitting diode, or LED, proved a breakthrough that now has countless practical applications, including lightbulbs, mobile phones, TV sets and microscopic surgical equipment that can save lives, died Sept. 18. He was 93.

Bill Plante, whose tenure as a CBS News White House correspondent spanned the administrations of Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, died Sept. 28. He Plante retired in 2016 after 52 years with the news division, a career that included coverage of the civil rights movement and of Vietnam, as well as all presidential elections from 1968 to 2016. Plante was also the anchor of CBS Sunday Night News from 1988 to 1995. He was 84.

Al Primo, credited with creating local television’s “Eyewitness News” format, died Sept. 29. Primo became news director at WABC New York in 1968, launching Eyewitness News that November with Roger Grimsby as lead anchor. Two years later, he’d pair Grimsby with Bill Beutel, and a legendary anchor team was born. Primo quickly turned a station with languishing newscasts and ratings into a powerhouse that became the standard in the industry. Primo had developed the Eyewitness News concept earlier, and was recruited from KYW-TV Philadelphia, where he had great success with his new approach to storytelling, and brought on talent like Tom Snyder. He was 87.

Nikki Finke, the veteran reporter who became one of Hollywood’s top journalists as founder of the entertainment trade website Deadline.com and whose sharp-tongued tenacity made her the most-feared columnist in show business, died Oct. 9. A famously reclusive blogger, Finke began writing LA Weekly’s “Deadline Hollywood” column in 2002 and made it essential reading for gossip and trade news. Four years later, she launched Deadline Hollywood Daily as a website. Finke’s sharp-elbow style earned her plenty of enemies in Hollywood. her regular drumbeat of exclusives proved her considerable influence with executives, agents and publicists. In 2010, Forbes listed her among “the world’s most powerful women.” She was 68.

Angela Lansbury, the scene-stealing British actor who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals Mame and Gypsy and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running CBS series Murder, She Wrote, died Oct. 11. While first winning fame in films and on Broadway, Lansbury’s widest fame began in 1984 when she launched Murder, She Wrote on CBS. Based loosely on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories, the series centered on Jessica Fletcher, a middle-aged widow and former substitute school teacher living in the seaside village of Cabot Cove, Maine. It ran (and delivered strong ratings) for 11 years and garnered Lansbury 18 Emmy nominations, never winning one. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for best actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for lead actress in a drama series. She was 96.

Leslie Jordan, a veteran actor and comedian whose credits included sitcoms Will & Grace and Call Me Kat, died Oct. 24. Jordan memorably played Karen (Megan Mullally)’s rival Beverley Leslie on Will & Grace, a role that won him an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006, and Phil on the Mayim Bialik sitcom Call Me Kat. He also played flamboyant actor Ashley Gilbert on American Horror Story: Roanoke. He was 67.

Jules Bass, whose work as a producer and director of stop-motion and animated television specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town and The Year Without A Santa Claus has become an integral part of the holiday season for generations, died Oct. 25. Bass was working in advertising in New York City when, in 1960, he teamed up with an art director at ABC named Arthur Rankin Jr. to form a film production company called Videocraft International. The company was launched with the 1960 series The New Adventures of Pinocchio, utilizing traditional animation, but found its breakthrough success in 1964 with the stop-motion classic Rudolph, featuring the voice of Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman. Rudolph also paved the way for Rankin/Bass’s premiere spot as a maker of holiday TV specials. Subsequent productions including the traditionally-animated Frosty the Snowman, with the voices of Jackie Vernon and Jimmy Durante, in 1969; and the stop-motion specials The Little Drummer Boy (1968); Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town (1970); and The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974), among numerous others. He was 87.

Shirley Baskin Familian, who co-founded Los Angeles public TV station KCET in 1964 and served on its board for more than 60 years, died Oct. 30. She was 101.

John Aniston, the Emmy-winning star of the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives and father of Jennifer Aniston, died Nov. 14 at age 89. His best known role was Victor Kiriakis in Days of Our Lives, but his credits also included Search for Tomorrow, The West Wing and Gilmore Girls.

Robert Clary, the French actor, singer and Holocaust survivor who portrayed Corporal LeBeau on the World War II-set sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, died Nov. 16. CBS’s Hogan’s Heroes, which aired over six seasons from September 1965 to April 1971, starred Bob Crane as Colonel Robert E. Hogan, an American who led an international group of Allied prisoners of war in a covert operation to defeat the Nazis from inside the Luft Stalag 13 camp. As the patriotic Cpl. Louis LeBeau, the 5-foot-1 Clary hid in small spaces, dreamed about girls, got along great with the guard dogs and used his expert culinary skills to help the befuddled Nazi Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Werner Klemperer) get out of trouble with his superiors. He was 96.

Bruce Christensen, who led PBS from the mid-1980s to the early ’90s amid attacks on public TV for airing controversial documentaries, died Nov. 19. Christensen succeeded Lawrence Grossman as PBS president in 1984. Throughout his tenure, colleagues praised him for defending PBS as it faced accusations that its programming had a liberal slant. Christensen began his media career as a reporter for KSL in Salt Lake City and later worked for WGN News in Chicago as a sports writer and producer. He returned to KSL as a statehouse correspondent, then became director of the department of broadcast services for Brigham Young University in 1972. There he led the university’s TV and radio station. In 1979, he became a PBS board member and GM of PBS Utah’s KUED-TV and KUER-FM. Christensen was the second president of the National Association of Public Television Stations, now known as APTS, from 1982 to1984. He was 79.

Jason Myers (r) and Chip Tayag, meteorologist and helicopter pilot, respectively, for WBTV Charlotte, N.C., were killed in a helicopter crash Nov. 22. Myers began his broadcasting career at KRBC Abilene, Texas, and went on to work at WRIC Richmond, Va., and WTVQ Lexington, Ky., before joining WBTV. Tayag came to WBTV in 2017 as an ENG pilot operating Sky3. He worked with the Total Traffic and Weather Network and had been a pilot for more than 20 years.

Bob McGrath, an actor, musician and children’s author widely known for his portrayal of one of the first regular characters on the children’s show Sesame Street, died Dec. 4 at 90. McGrath was a founding cast member of Sesame Street when the show premiered in 1969, playing a friendly neighbor Bob Johnson. He made his final appearance on the show in 2017, marking an almost five-decade-long run. He also was a singer in the 1960s series Sing Along with Mitch.

Kirstie Alley, a two-time Emmy winner whose roles on the TV megahit Cheers and in the Look Who’s Talking films made her one of the biggest stars in American comedy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died Dec. 5. She starred opposite Ted Danson as Rebecca Howe on Cheers, the beloved NBC sitcom about a Boston bar, from 1987 to 1993. Alley joined the show at the height of its popularity after the departure of original star Shelley Long. Alley would win an Emmy for best lead actress in a comedy series for the role in 1991. She was 71.

Carl Kleinschmitt, the sitcom writer who worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show and M*A*S*H and created two series starring Sandy Duncan and the football comedy 1st and Ten, died Dec. 8. Kleinschmitt, who wrote often with the late Dale McRaven, penned episodes of other series including Hey Landlord, Good Morning World, The Doris Day Show, That Girl, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Love, American Style, My World and Welcome to It, Karen, Welcome Back, Kotter and The Love Boat. He was 85.

Stuart Margolin, the character actor and James Garner buddy best known for portraying the smarmy yet sweet con man Evelyn “Angel” Martin on The Rockford Files, died Dec. 12. In addition to playing many film roles, Margolin also proved to be a prolific TV director, helming episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show; Wonder Woman; Touched by an Angel; The Love Boat; Magnum, P.I.; Northern Exposure; Quantum Leap; and, to be expected, The Rockford Files. He was 82.

Drew Griffin, CNN senior investigative reporter, known for his work on an array of topics, died Dec. 17. Griffin joined CNN in 2004 after a previous stint as an investigative reporter for CNN Los Angeles. His long list of accomplishments included a Peabody Award in 2015 for his investigative reporting on delays at Veterans Affairs hospitals that contributed to patient deaths, which led to the VA secretary’s resignation. He was 60.

Edyth “Edie” Landau, a producer who oversaw original programming like The David Susskind Show and the anthology series The Play of the Week during her tenure as executive vice president of National Telefilm Associates, died Dec. 24. Other series under her purview as EVP included The Mike Wallace Show, Open End, The Bishop Queen Show and One Night Stand. She remained at the television production company until 1961, then went on to produce and develop TV and film productions with her husband Ely Landau. She was 95.

Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who led the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a network career remarkable for its duration and variety, died Dec. 30 at 93. During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend in broadcast journalism that made stars of TV reporters and brought news programs into the race for higher ratings. Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary that drew gasps. Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists who followed the trail she blazed. Late in her career, in 1997, she gave infotainment a new twist with The View, a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. It became an unexpected hit.

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Patricia Loud, best known for being the matriarch of the PBS docuseries An American Family, died Jan. 10. She was 94. The Loud family became famous as the subjects of An American Family, which was filmed in 1971 and aired on PBS in early 1973. The show was considered groundbreaking and is now referred to as the first reality TV series.

Ray Brady, a longtime CBS News correspondent who focused on business and the economy, died Jan. 12 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94. Brady spent 28 years with CBS News, starting in 1972 when he joined CBS Radio. He retired in 2000 after 23 years as a correspondent for CBS Evening News.

Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Jan 23. He was 87. A longtime nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honors, including two Peabody awards.

Hal Holbrook, the craftsman who reincarnated Mark Twain on stage and screen for more than six decades and also stood out as Abraham Lincoln and Deep Throat, two other American legends, died Jan. 23. He won five Emmys, earned an Oscar nomination at age 82 for Into the Wild and starred in Magnum Force and Wall Street. He was 95.

Cloris Leachman, an Oscar-winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in The Last Picture Show and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein and self-absorbed neighbor Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, died Jan. 27. She was 94. A character actor of extraordinary range, Leachman defied typecasting. In her early television career, she appeared as Timmy’s mother on the Lassie series. She played a frontier prostitute in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a crime spree family member in Crazy Mama and Blücher in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, in which the very mention of her name drew equine commentary.

Mitchell Krauss, a former CBS News Middle East correspondent and Cairo bureau chief, died Jan. 27. He was 90.

Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in Sounder, won a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (for which she won two Emmys), died Jan. 28 at age 96. President Barack Obama awarded Tyson the Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Allan Burns, a television producer and screenwriter best known for cocreating and cowriting for the television sitcoms The Munsters, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda, died Jan. 30 at 85. Early jobs included working in animation for Jay Ward on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Dudley Do-Right and George of the Jungle. He also is credited with cowriting the unaired pilot episode of The Smothers Brothers Show from 1965.

Jamie Tarses, who broke the glass ceiling for female TV executives as the first woman to run a network entertainment division, died Feb. 1 from complications stemming from a cardiac event. She was 56. A superstar TV executive, Tarses was instrumental in developing such iconic shows as NBC’s Friends and Frasier and reached the pinnacle of the network programming executive ladder by age 32, becoming president of ABC Entertainment. Young and phenomenally successful, Tarses transcended the media business to become a bona fide celebrity who was both admired and scrutinized. After leaving ABC, she produced such popular shows as ABC’s Happy Endings, TBS’s My Boys, TNT’s Franklin & Bash and Amazon Prime Video’s The Wilds.

Tony Trabert, one of the biggest tennis stars of the 1950s, who won five major singles championships and five more in doubles play before a long career in broadcasting, died Feb. 3. He was 90. Following his tennis career, he was working as a business executive in Los Angeles in the early 1970s when he sent an audition tape to CBS and was hired as a tennis analyst. He spent more than 20 years teamed with announcer Pat Summerall.

Larry Flynt, who turned his raunchy Hustler magazine into an empire while fighting numerous First Amendment court battles and flaying politicians with stunts such as a Donald Trump assassination Christmas card, died Feb. 10. He was 78. Flynt was shot in a 1978 assassination attempt and left paralyzed from the waist down but refused to slow down, building a flamboyant reputation along with a fortune estimated at $100 million. Flynt owned not only Hustler but other niche publications, a video production company, scores of websites, two Los Angeles-area casinos and dozens of Hustler boutiques selling adult-oriented products. At the time of his death he claimed to have video-on-demand operations in more than 55 countries and more than 30 Hustler Hollywood retail stores throughout the United States.

Gustave M. Hauser, an early force in cable TV, died Feb 14 at 91. The bold experiment he undertook in Columbus, Ohio, in 1977 helped usher in the modern era of multichannel digital cable television. That year, Warner Cable Communications unveiled QUBE, an experimental cable system offering a package of 30 themed channels that provided movies, sports, children’s programming and documentaries. The system not only offered customers content unavailable on broadcast television; it also introduced new technology to bring that content to them.

Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio host who ripped into liberals and laid waste to political correctness with a gleeful malice that made him one of the most powerful voices in politics, influencing the rightward push of American conservatism and the rise of Donald Trump, died Feb. 17. He was 70.

Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Mike Pearl, who worked at five networks and won 17 Sports Emmy awards, died March 1 at the age of 77. Highlights of his career include producing the first four years of NFL Today, the first five years of Inside the NBA, the first live wire-to-wire coverage of a Daytona 500, and working on five Olympics.

Roger Mudd, the longtime political correspondent and anchor for NBC and CBS who once stumped Sen. Edward Kennedy by simply asking why he wanted to be president, died March 9. He was 93. During more than 30 years on network television, starting with CBS in 1961, Mudd covered Congress, elections and political conventions and was a frequent anchor and contributor to various specials. His career coincided with the flowering of television news, the pre-cable, pre-internet days when the Big 3 networks and their powerhouse ranks of reporters were the main source of news for millions of Americans.

Arthur Greenwald, a longtime media consultant, KDKA Pittsburgh executive producer and TVNewsCheck contributor, was gifted with an impish wit and knew how to sling a bon mot for maximum impact. He died March 12 at 68.

Yaphet Kotto, the compelling character actor who portrayed police lieutenant Al Giardello on Homicide: Life on the Street, a space traveler in Alien and a supervillain in Live and Let Die, died March 15. He was 81. A presence at 6-foot-4 and more than 240 pounds in his prime, Kotto also was known for his eerie Emmy-nominated performance as the brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in Raid on Entebbe, a 1976 NBC movie.

George Segal, the banjo player turned actor who was nominated for an Oscar for 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and worked into his late 80s on the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, died March 23 at 87. In the 1980s and ’90s, he turned to television and found success in 1997 with the David Spade sitcom Just Shoot Me in which he played magazine publisher Jack Gallo, who despite his gruff manner hires his daughter (Laura San Giacomo) and keeps Spade’s worthless office boy character on his payroll simply out of a sense of affection for both. He played grandfather Albert “Pops” Solomon on the The Goldbergs since 2013.

Jessica Walter, the award-winning actress whose career spanned six decades, died on March 24 at 80. Walter’s career included everything from a standout turn in Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, to The Flamingo Kid and her Emmy-nominated turns on Trapper John M.D. and Streets of San Francisco. For her performance as Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development, Walter earned yet another Emmy nomination and two SAG nominations. Walter won an Emmy starring in Amy Prentiss, an Ironside spinoff in the mid-1970s about a young San Francisco police detective. She also voiced Malory Archer on FXX’s animated series Archer.

Larry McMurtry, a prolific novelist and screenwriter who demythologized the American West with his unromantic depictions of life on the 19th-century frontier and in contemporary small-town Texas, died March 25. He was 84. Over more than five decades, McMurtry wrote more than 30 novels and many books of essays, memoir and history. He also wrote more than 30 screenplays, including the one for “Brokeback Mountain” (written with Diana Ossana, based on a short story by Annie Proulx), for which he won an Academy Award in 2006. But he found his greatest commercial and critical success with Lonesome Dove, a sweeping 843-page novel about two retired Texas Rangers who drive a herd of stolen cattle from the Rio Grande to Montana in the 1870s. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and was made into a popular television miniseries.

Don Farmer, a TV news veteran who was one of CNN’s original anchors, died March 31 after battling a rare neurological disease known as PSP. Farmer and his wife, fellow broadcast journalist Chris Curle, were among the first anchors hired in 1980 when Ted Turner launched CNN. Among Farmer’s early assignments was a week of live coverage from Cuba that included an interview with then leader Fidel Castro. Farmer got his start in TV at NBC News and moved to ABC News in 1965. He covered the Civil Rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and logged an interview with all four Beatles at the height of Beatlemania.

Gloria Henry, who advanced from B movies in the 1940s to an iconicTV mom on the CBS sitcom Dennis the Menace, died April 3, one day after her 98th birthday. Henry played Alice Mitchell, the endlessly patient, shirtwaist dress-wearing mother of the mischievous title character created as a newspaper cartoon by Hank Ketcham. The TV series adaptation ran from 1959 to 1963 with Jay North in the title role.

Edward J. “Ted” Koplar, a former chief executive officer of KPLR St. Louis and longtime entrepreneur, died April 4 at age 77. Koplar first worked as a show producer at the station that was started in 1959 by his father, Harold Koplar. The younger Koplar became president and chief executive in 1979 and under his leadership KPLR was consistently ranked among the top independent stations in the U.S. It became affiliated with the WB Network in 1995 and was sold to Acme Communications in 1998.

Anne Beatts, the creator of CBS sitcom Square Pegs and an original writer on Saturday Night Live, died April 7. She was 74. The recipient of two Emmy Awards, Beatts co-created several SNL characters alongside her writing partner Rosie Shuster, including Todd and Lisa Lupner, Irwin Mainway, Fred Garvin and Uncle Roy. Alongside creating and producing Square Pegs and her work on SNL, the writer-producer also wrote for The Stephanie Miller Show (on which she was additionally an executive producer) and Committed and co-executive produced A Different World from 1987 to 1988.

Charles “Chuck” Geschke, the co-founder of the major software company Adobe Inc. who helped develop Portable Document Format technology, or PDFs — died April 16 at age 81.

Norman Lloyd, whose acting credits stretched from the earliest known U.S. TV drama, 1939′s On the Streets of New York on the nascent NBC network, to 21st-century projects including Modern Family and The Practice, died on May 11 at 106. His role as kindly Dr. Daniel Auschlander on NBC’s St. Elsewhere was a single chapter in a distinguished television, stage and screen career that put him in the company of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and other greats. Lloyd worked steadily as a TV actor and director in the early 1950s, but the political liberal found his career in jeopardy during the Hollywood blacklist period aimed at communists or their sympathizers. In 1957, Hitchcock came to his rescue, Lloyd said in 2014. When the famed director sought to hire Lloyd as associate producer on his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents but was told “There is a problem with Norman Lloyd,” Hitchcock didn’t back down, Lloyd recalled. His other TV credits include roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Murder, She Wrote, The Paper Chase, Quincy M.E., and Kojak.

Paul Mooney, the boundary-pushing comedian who was Richard Pryor’s longtime writing partner and whose bold, incisive musings on racism and American life made him a revered figure in stand-up, died May 19 at 79.

Gavin MacLeod, who was the Love Boat captain and played Murray on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, two of the top television shows of the 1970s and 1980s, died May 29. He was 90.

Character actor Ned Beatty who received an Emmy nomination for the topical telepic Friendly Fire, in which Beatty and Carol Burnett starred as a couple who, while mourning the death of their son, uncover the ugly realities of the war in Vietnam, died June 13. He was also nominated in 1989 for his work in Last Train Home. Most memorable of his TV efforts, however, was his performance as the acerbic Detective Stanley Bolander on NBC’s ensemble police drama Homicide: Life on the Street in the early 1990s. Beatty was 83.

Norman S. Powell, the two-time Emmy-nominated producer who worked on such series as The New Dick Van Dyke Show and 24 and, as a longtime CBS executive, greenlighted a pilot for Cagney & Lacey, died June 16. He was 86.

Major media broker John Veronis who played a role in Rupert Murdoch’s $3 billion purchase of the company that owned TV Guide, died June 24 at 93. His firm, Veronis, Suhler & Associates, was also involved in the sale of Capital Cities’ television station in Buffalo and the acquisition of two TV stations by the Telemundo Group, the operator of Spanish-language networks that is now part of NBCUniversal. In 1990, Veronis helped broker the merger between two nascent satellite services in Britain — Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Broadcasting and British Satellite Broadcasting.

Richard Donner, a filmmaker who helped create the modern superhero blockbuster with 1978’s Superman and mastered the buddy comedy with the Lethal Weapon franchise died July 5 at 91. He got his start directing television series including Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Twilight Zone, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Fugitive.

Robert Jacquemin, a syndication pioneer, died July 11 at 78. As head of television at Buena Vista and DreamWorks, he shepherded syndication sales of such shows as Entertainment Tonight, Family Ties and Home Improvement during his long career.

Jackie Mason, a rabbi-turned-comedian whose feisty brand of standup comedy led him to Catskills nightclubs, West Coast talk shows and Broadway stages, died July 24. He was 93. Mason started in show business as a social director at a resort in the Catskills. In 1961, the pint-sized comic got a big break, an appearance on Steve Allen’s weekly television variety show. His success brought him to The Ed Sullivan Show. On TV, Mason became a reliable presence, usually with a cameo on such shows as 30 Rock or The Simpsons or as a reliable guest on latenight chat shows.

Ron Popeil, the man behind those latenight, rapid-fire television commercials that sell everything from the Mr. Microphone to the Pocket Fisherman to the classic Veg-a-Matic, died July 28 at 86. Most prominently, though, he cheerfully gave away his infomercial content to moviemakers looking for something to be playing on TV in the background of their films. In this way did he extend his reputation for ubiquity — and his growing wink-nudge pop-culture brand — for free, with no effort at all. Others did the work, and he got the eyeballs.

Longtime NBC programming executive Herb Schlosser who put an indelible stamp on the network by negotiating Johnny Carson’s first deal to host The Tonight Show, putting Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In on the air and overseeing the development of Saturday Night Live, died Aug. 6 at age 95. Schlosser was president of NBC in 1974 when he faced a latenight predicament: Johnny Carson no longer wanted the network to carry repeats of Tonight on weekends. In early 1975 he wrote a memo that laid out the fundamentals of an original program that would be televised from NBC’s headquarters at Rockefeller Center; would be carried live, or at least taped on the same day, to maintain its topicality; would be “young and bright,” with a “distinctive look, a distinctive set and a distinctive sound”; would “seek to develop new television personalities”; and would have a different host each week. “Saturday Night is an ideal time to launch a show like this,” Schlosser wrote. “Those who now take the Saturday/Sunday Tonight Show repeats should welcome this, and I would imagine we would get much greater clearance with a new show.”

Nickolas “Nick” Davatzes, CEO emeritus of A+E Networks who developed and launched A&E Network and History Channel, died Aug. 21 at 79. Davatzes, one of the architects behind the boom of the cable network business in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, joined what would become A+E Networks in December 1983 following the merger of the Entertainment Network, owned by RCA and the Rockefeller family and the ARTS Network, owned by Hearst and ABC.

Longtime NBC News correspondent Lloyd Dobyns Jr. died Aug. 21. Dobyns, who began his broadcasting career in 1957 at WDBJ Roanoke, Va., worked for NBC News in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and was known in the U.S. for working with Linda Ellerbee on the latenight news series NBC News Overnight in 1982 and 1983. He won a Peabody Award in 1975 and retired in 1986. Dobyns was 85.

Ed Asner, the burly and prolific character actor who became a star in middle age as the gruff but lovable newsman Lou Grant, first in the CBS hit comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later in the drama Lou Grant, died Aug 28. He was 91. Asner won three best supporting actor Emmys on Mary Tyler Moore and two best actor awards on Lou Grant. He also won Emmys for his roles in the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1975-1976) and Roots (1976-1977). He had more than 300 acting credits and remained active throughout his 70s and 80s in a variety of film and TV roles. More recently, he was in such TV series as Forgive Me and Dead to Me.

Gene Walsh, who spent three decades as a publicity executive for NBC in New York and then Burbank, Calif., died Sept. 1. He was 87. The only staffer to head NBC press and publicity departments on both coasts, Walsh worked closely with Johnny Carson and Bob Hope and with top execs including Grant Tinker and Brandon Tartikoff during his career. He retired in 1991.

Willard Scott, the beloved weatherman who charmed viewers of NBC’s Today show with his self-deprecating humor and cheerful personality, died Sept. 4 at 87. He began his 65-year career at NBC as an entry-level page at NBC-owned WRC Washington, D.C., and rose to become the weather forecaster on the television network’s flagship morning show for more than three decades.

Irma Kalish, a trailblazing sitcom writer and producer, died Sept. 4. She and her late husband Austin “Rocky” Kalish worked on hundreds of television episodes for shows including All in the Family, Maude, My Three Sons, My Favorite Martian, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, F Troop and Family Affair, the last of which they also served as story editors. They went on to produce and write for other series including CBS’s Good Times, ABC’s Too Close for Comfort and NBC’s The Facts of Life and 227.

Norm Macdonald, whose laconic delivery of sharp and incisive observations made him one of Saturday Night Live‘s most influential and beloved cast members, died Sept. 14 after a nine-year private battle with cancer. He was 61. He was an SNL cast member from 1993 to 1998, making his greatest impact as the anchor of the show’s “Weekend Update” segments for three seasons. Remembered for his droll style — and for his refusal to go easy on O.J. Simpson despite reported pressure from NBC execs — Macdonald would prove one of the most impactful “Update” anchors, pivoting away from the slapstick approach of Chevy Chase and toward the more barbed political approach of his successor, Colin Quinn.

John J. Rigas, whose high-flying success as the founder of Adelphia Cable ended in disgrace and prison over shareholder fraud, died Sept. 30. He was 96.

James Michael Tyler, who portrayed the neglected Central Perk barista Gunther on all 10 seasons of Friends, died Oct. 23. He was 59. Tyler was working as a barista at the Bourgeois Pig coffee shop on Franklin Avenue near Hollywood when he was asked to stand in the background and work the levers of the Central Perk espresso machine on the NBC sitcom. It took him two seasons and 33 appearances before he got his first line of dialogue and for his character to get a name. Tyler would show up on 150 of the 236 episodes of the show, from the second installment that first aired in September 1994 to “The Last One” on May 6, 2004. No other actor recurred more often.

Former Quantum Leap star Dean Stockwell, an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actor whose career on stage, in film and TV spanned more than 70 years, died Nov. 7 at 85.

Kevin Nishita, a security guard who was shot while protecting a KRON San Francisco crew during an attempted armed robbery on Nov. 24, died from his injuries.

Michael Nesmith , the singer-songwriter, author, actor-director and entrepreneur who will likely be best remembered as the wool-hatted, guitar-strumming member of the made-for-television rock band The Monkees, died Dec. 10 at 78.

John Madden, the NFL Hall of Fame coach turned broadcaster whose exuberant calls combined with simple explanations provided a weekly soundtrack to NFL games for three decades, died Dec. 28 at 85. Madden gained fame in a decade-long stint as the coach of the renegade Oakland Raiders, making it to seven AFC title games and winning the Super Bowl following the 1976 season. But it was his work after prematurely retiring as coach at age 42 that made Madden truly a household name. He was the preeminent television sports analyst for most of his three decades calling games, winning an unprecedented 16 Emmy Awards for outstanding sports analyst/personality, and covering 11 Super Bowls for four networks from 1979 to 2009.

Jeff Dickerson, an NFL reporter for ESPN who covered the Chicago Bears for two decades, died Dec. 28 of complications from colon cancer. He was 44.

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Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru whose Jack LaLanne Show was a television staple from 1951 to 1985, died Jan. 24. On his show, LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set to exercise. He was 96.

Bill Monroe, a Washington journalist best known for moderating the NBC Sunday talk show Meet the Press during the 1970s and ’80s, died Feb. 17. He later became Washington editor of the Today show and won a prestigious Peabody award for his work. He also served as president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. He was 90.

Barry Ackerley, former owner of the Seattle SuperSonics and former chairman and CEO of the Ackerley Group, died March 22. The Ackerley Group owned 18 TV stations in California, Colorado, Oregon, New York and Alaska. He was 76.

Dawson “Tack” Nail, long-time executive editor of Warren Communications News’s Television Digest and Communications Daily, died March 25. He arrived in Washington in 1955 with Broadcasting magazine, then moved to Television Digest in 1964, where he stayed until his semi-retirement. The dean of reporters covering the communications industry, Nail continued as a regular contributor until his death. He was 82.

David Smith, president and CEO of Mission Broadcasting, died March 28. Mission owns 16 stations — based mostly in smaller markets in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Texas — but they are operated by Nexstar Broadcasting as part of duopolies. He was 55.

Larry Fraiberg, president of Group W TV Stations from 1980 to 1986, died March 26. Fraiberg was named VP-GM of WTTG Washington in 1963, which began his long career in local television management. He subsequently served as VP-GM of WNEW New York from 1965 to 1969 (and again from 1971 to 1977), president of Metromedia from 1977 to 1979, and then president of Group W TV Stations, the local television division of Westinghouse. He was 89.

Madelyn Pugh Davis, a writer who collaborated with partner Bob Carroll Jr. on the groundbreaking series I Love Lucy in the 1950s and continued to work with Lucille Ball over four decades, died April 20. She was 90.

Hubert J. “Hub” Schlafly Jr., a television engineer who aided countless politicians and performers when he helped invent the scrolling public-speaking crutch known as a teleprompter, died April 20. He was 91.

Jeff Gralnick, who worked for ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC, died May 9. Gralnick spent 20 years at ABC and most recently was a consultant to NBC News President Steve Capus. Earlier at NBC, he served for three years an executive producer of the NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw, helping make the broadcast the top-rated evening news show. He was 72.

Burt Reinhardt, a former CNN president credited with helping to build the global news network, died May 10. He oversaw the creation of several of CNN’s most prominent shows, including Larry King Live and Crossfire. He also arranged for CNN to charge other news organizations to reuse CNN’s on-air news pieces. Reinhardt remained with CNN in several capacities until his retirement in 2003. He was 91.

Joseph Wershba, a CBS News producer and reporter who was one of the original 60 Minutes producers and who worked on Edward R. Murrow’s Joe McCarthy expose in 1954, died May 14. He was 90.

James Arness, the actor whose portrayal of U.S. Marshal Dillon in the 1955-75 CBS Western series created an indelible portrait of a quiet, heroic man with an unbending dedication to justice and the town he protected, died June 3. He was 88.

Peter Falk, star of NBC’s Columbo, died June 23. He won four Emmys for his portrayal of the rumpled TV detective, as well as Oscar nominations for his first two films. He was 83.

Sherwood Schwartz, writer-creator of two of the best-remembered TV series of the 1960s and 1970s, Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, died July 12. He was 94.

Bruce Sundlun, the former broadcaster who served two tumultuous terms as governor of Rhode Island in the early 1990s, died July 21. Earlier, he ran Outlet Communcations, a station group whose flagship was WJAR Providence and which was bought by NBC in 1996. He was 91.

Bud Grant, a former CBS Entertainment president, died July 1. Grant joined CBS in 1972 as a daytime programmer before moving into primetime in 1977 and becoming president in 1980 until 1987. CBS hits during that time included The Dukes of Hazzard, WKRP in Cincinnati and Murder, She Wrote. He was 79.

Elmer Lower, president of ABC News from 1963 to 1974, died July 26. Under his tenure, ABC News grew from 250 to 750 employees, and the evening news expanded from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Lower also was behind the network’s hiring of broadcasting greats including Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Frank Reynolds and Sam Donaldson. He was 98.

Carolyn Chambers, founder-CEO of Chambers Communications, which owns four Oregon stations — KEZI, KOHD, KDRV and KDKF — died Aug. 8. She was also the founder of cable operator Liberty Communications which was sold in 1983 to John Malone for $186 million. She was 79.

Earl Arbuckle, the senior VP of engineering at Fox Television Stations, died Aug. 29. He was responsible for implementing the transition to digital broadcasting and HDTV at all 27 of the Fox owned stations. Arbuckle was 61.

Arthur C. Nielsen Jr., who transformed the company his father founded in 1923 into an international leader in market research, helping to make its name synonymous with television ratings, died Oct. 3. He was 92.

Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. co-founder died Oct. 5. Jobs helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist’s obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cellphone and music industries. He was 56.

Norman Corwin, a creative giant of the Golden Age of Radio whose programs chronicling World War II are milestones in broadcasting, died Oct. 18. Throughout the 1940s, Corwin was well known to millions of Americans who depended on radio for their link to the world. His work ran the gamut of creative offerings, from variety shows to dramas, comedies to documentaries. During a career that spanned more than 70 years, Corwin wrote, produced and directed for radio, television, film and the stage. He was 101.

Robert Pierpoint, a CBS correspondent who covered six presidents, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination and the Iranian hostage crisis in a career that spanned more than four decades, died Oct. 22. Pierpoint became a White House correspondent during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, a position he would hold through the Jimmy Carter administration. He was 86.

Dan Burke, whose exceptional broadcasting career took him from general manager of WTEN Albany, N.Y., to president and CEO of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., died Oct. 26. After building Capital Cities into a major station group, he and longtime partner Tom Murphy bought ABC. Together, they ran CapCities/ABC for 10 years before selling it in 1996 to Disney. He was 82.

Andy Rooney, the popular 60 Minutes commentator, died Nov. 4, only a month after delivering his 1,097th and final televised commentary. Rooney was a freelance writer in 1949 when he encountered CBS radio star Arthur Godfrey in an elevator and — with the bluntness millions of people learned about later — told him his show could use better writing. Godfrey hired him and by 1953, when he moved to TV, Rooney was his only writer. He wrote for CBS’s Garry Moore during the early 1960s before settling into a partnership with Harry Reasoner at CBS News. Rooney left CBS in 1970 when it refused to air his angry essay about the Vietnam War. He went on TV for the first time, reading the essay on PBS and winning a Writers Guild of America award for it. He returned to CBS three years later as a writer and producer of specials, joining 60 Minutes and airing his first commentary on July 2, 1978. He was 92.

Hal Bruno, a pioneer of political journalism, helped guide ABC’s political coverage through most of the 1980s and ’90s, before leaving in 1999. He was 83.

Harry Morgan, one of the best-known character actors in Hollywood, most famous for his portrayal of the fatherly Col. Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H, died Dec. 7. He was 96.

To read Parts I and II, which covered the year’s developments in business, regulatory, programming, journalism and new media, click here.

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