Diller, Barry

▪ 1999

      As the so-called telecommunications superhighway continued to develop at breakneck speed during 1998, U.S. entrepreneur Barry Diller remained one of its prime movers by consolidating the string of acquisitions he began to make in the mid-1990s. In 1995 he bought Silver King Broadcasting, which included a number of local television stations, and in 1996 merged it with his newly acquired Home Shopping Network. In 1997 he took control of two cable networks, USA and the Sci-Fi Channel. That same year Diller also acquired assets of the production company Universal Television and became part owner of Ticketmaster. By 1998 his holdings included broadcast television stations, cable systems, and television production facilities, and he announced plans for a new type of high-quality local news and entertainment programming on his station in Miami, Fla. A tough and demanding boss, he had in the past successfully guided companies through financial difficulties while putting his mark on American pop culture. Analysts were waiting to see what he might now do with his new media holdings.

      Diller was born in San Francisco on Feb. 2, 1942. He dropped out of college and in 1961 took a job as a mail clerk at the William Morris Agency. In 1966 he began working as a programming assistant at ABC, where he rose in the ranks to become a vice president of the company. There, he gained acclaim for his successful programming innovations such as the TV miniseries, notably Roots, and the made-for-TV movie of the week. In 1974 he moved to Paramount Pictures, where he served as chairman and chief executive. Under his leadership Paramount became the most successful of the Hollywood studios in the late 1970s and the early '80s, producing such movies as Saturday Night Fever and Raiders of the Lost Ark and the popular television series "Cheers." In 1985 he became chairman and chief executive of Twentieth Century-Fox and later, under new owner Rupert Murdoch (Murdoch, Rupert) (q.v.), was given the job of creating a fourth television network. With programs like "Married . . . with Children" and "The Simpsons" delivered by satellite to a hastily assembled group of affiliates, the Fox Network succeeded against all odds.

      In 1992 Diller left Fox and purchased QVC, a home-shopping cable network. Two years later he was defeated in his attempt to buy his old employer, which had been renamed Paramount Communications. That same year QVC and CBS announced a merger, but it was quickly squelched by QVC investors. Diller then sold QVC and started on the series of acquisitions and mergers that by 1998 once again made him a power broker in telecommunications.

ROBERT RAUCH

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