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Founder of Metromedia (KLAC, KMET, KTTV) Dies at 95

L

LKellerIII

As posted on the San Francisco board, but notable in Los Angeles, too:

John Kluge, the founder of Metromedia has died. MM once owned KLAC, KMET, and KTTV 11; as well as stations in other markets. Kluge made a fortune selling his TV stations to News Corp,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/business/media/09kluge.html

An interesting rememberance from a WNEW-FM disc-jockey:

Mike said:
A nice quote from Dave Herman, onetime WNEW-FM deejay, on that other board:

When I joined WNEW-FM in 1972 John's corporate offices were in the same location as us... he would arrive at the office about 7 or 7:30 and since I was doing morning drive he would often come into the studio bringing me muffins, bagels, coffee, etc. He'd hang out with me constantly asking me questions. "What's so special about Bob Dylan?", he'd ask. Or "Why did you decide to change the next record you had cued up at the last minute?"

At Thanksgiving every single one of the many hundreds of company employees would get a turkey. A practice that Mel Karmazin (now in charge of Siruis/XM) would continue when he became our boss. I'm sure Mel would agree with me that much of Kluge's management style influenced him as he rose to the top.

Metromedia was the very 1st company to start playing progressive/free form rock on FM on all it's 7 FM stations including WNEW-FM, KSAN (SF), WMMR (Philly) WMMS (Cleveland) and others. That could never have happened without John Kluge at the helm. He is as vital to the history of broadcasting as any other person.
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Anyone still have the Metromedia News sounder?
 
coppersmom said:
Mr Kluge had a huge....art collection...but no taste.
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Kluge was one of the persons most responsible for the preservation and promotion of aboriginal art. He also made the 4th largest donation to a unversity in history.

His taste may be different than yours, particularly since there is no single "right" definition of taste in art.
 
In addition to his TV sucess, John Kluge was responsible for some really good radio.

Those were some great FM stations. Interesting that rather than do AOR in Washington he put an "AM" style MOR format on 97.1 in 1969 and created WASH-FM, which enjoyed many years of great success. That despite the fact that this was pre DC-101 and there really wasn't an established AOR other than WHFS.

In LA, he chose country on KLAC and that was a successful station.

Then there was WNEW-AM. They were every bit as great as KMPC was in the Whittinghill-Owens era. Those two stations IMO are in the Top 10 greatest US stations-ever!
 
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