Library of American Broadcasting:
 Annual Giants of Broadcasting Honors -

Jim Luce, Dr. Judy Kuriansky & Ernie Anastos

Photo Credit: Paul Harrington

Gotham Hall’s iconic grand ballroom was the venue for this year’s
 ‘GIANTS of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts’ luncheon,
the thirteenth such annual celebration of the
Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF).

The annual event is attended by prominent members of the broadcasting, media and corporate community, to celebrate distinguished leadership and achievements in radio and television. The ten honorees this year join 180 GIANTS OF BROADCASTING who have been honored by the Library since 2003.

The event was kicked off by a lively cameo appearance from beloved anchorman and TV host, Ernie Anastos. With Ernie’s trademark blend of charisma and good humor his quipped that he wanted “to die young, but just not too early in life.”

‘GIANTS 2015’ honorees (from left): Rod Carter, Michael Carter, Herb Granath, Don West, Gracia Martore, Bill Persky, Mel Karmazin, Gene Jankowski & Don Mischer

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

LABF board members (from left): Erwin Krasnow, Esq., Greater Media’s Heidi Raphael, appMobi’s Dave Kennedy, NAB’s Dennis Wharton, media personality Dr. Judy Kuriansky, agent Richard Leibner, Hubbard Broadcasting’s Ginny Morris, TV executive Craig Tanner, broadcast executive James Morley, IRTS Foundation president & CEO Joyce Tudryn, ‘GIANTS 2015’ honoree Michael Carter & Patrick Communications’ Larry Patrick

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

‘GIANTS’ honoree Mel Karmazin, 'Zen Master'
and Architect of $100 Billion in M&A Deals

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

Already a Broadcasting Hall of Famer, new GIANT Mel Karmazin has clocked up some $100 billion in M&A activity. A boardroom colossus, Karmazin held president and CEO positions at major media corporations, including Infinity Broadcasting, Viacom and CBS Corp. ,but is perhaps best known,for engineering the acrimonious, drawn-out merger of Sirius and XM Satellite Radio – a deal that furthered Howard Stern as a dominant industry force.. With humble beginnings as the son of a New York cabbie and factory worker, Karmazin noted the irony that he failed high school physics but decades later as Sirius XM CEO, rocket scientists were reporting to him, saing,. “It doesn’t get any better than that.” Commenting on the state of the industry today, he called for greater media consolidation in the face of an alarming increase in mergers among advertisers and agencies.  Caustically confessing to having once told Google theirs was a crazy model and that CBS’s was far superior, he now most admires the model of Amazon: driven by original content and not tethered to advertising revenue. Ultimately, he concluded, the most important people in broadcasting are the content-makers and consumers.

‘GIANTS’ honoree Don Mischer produced Michael Jackson moonwalking
Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

No stranger to awards shows – having helmed numerous live Oscar and Emmy broadcasts– veteran producer and director Don Mischer was named a GIANT given for his game-changing TV specials and live events, including Michael Jackson’s moonwalking debut, Muhammed Ali lighting the Olympic torch and Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ halftime performance at Super Bowl XLI. Bitten with the TV bug as a boy in Texas, setting up a box in place of a television, Mischer was inspired to embark on a TV career after watching hours of coverage of JFK’s assassination,

‘GIANTS’ honoree Bill Persky: With "That Girl" This Guy Changed TV

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

Named a GIANT for this 70-year long TV career as a producer and director, much-loved Bill Persky started under the tutelage of the legendary Carl Reiner, who gave him his big break as a writer on The Dick Van Dyke Show, and went on to genuinely groundbreaking television featuring women, with the 80’s Kate & Allie and That Girl for Danny Thomas, that put single career women on the TV map. “Carl changed how sitcoms are done, enabling them to deal with issues of sex and race”, Persky said, before self-deprecatingly assuring us he was delighted to receive his award “if not as a giant, then as a tall person”.

Speaking of career women, newly awarded GIANT Gracia Martore, TEGNA Inc. president & CEO, is one of only two dozen female CEOs currently leading a Fortune 500 company, and listed among elite business figures by Forbes, Variety and The Washington Post  The self-described “news junkie”emphasized her faith in the power of local media, citing Pew Center research that local TV is still the most trusted source for news today.

Dr. Judy Kuriansky with ‘GIANTS’ honorees Michael and Rod Carter, who broke ground with their Carter Broadcast Group 

Photo credit: Rose Billings/Black Tie Magazine

The Carter family are GIANTS for pioneering family-owned radio, with Andrew Carter making history in 1950 by launching Kansas City-based KPRS-AM, the first black radio station west of the Mississippi. Glad to keep his grandfather’s dream alive, grandson Michael was named company president in 1987, overseeing challenges from segregation to buy-out offers.. steering the Carter Broadcast Group as the oldest continually-run, African-American, family-owned US radio group.  He shared a poignant detail of family lore: grandmother Mildred – herself a powerful driving force in the business and local community – passed away on 3 January, 2003 – the of “ one-o-three three – coincidentally the FM broadcasting
frequency of KPRS.

‘GIANTS’ honorees Herb Granath, Gene Jankowski & Don West

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

Newly named GIANT Herb Granath humorously announced that he was “delighted to be here”, before deadpanning: “Actually, I’m just delighted to be anywhere.” Having cut his teeth as an NBC page while a physics major at Fordham University, Granath largely oversaw ABC’s rise and expansion into cable and international arenas. Notably, he turned ESPN’s losses into the largest and most successful sports network on two continents and was later appointed chairman of the new brand of Disney/ABC International in 1995 that he also turned into a global industry leader.

Newly named GIANT Gene Jankowski was a pivotal figure at CBS Corp. throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, including 12 years as president and chairman. Since leaving in 1989,. and serving as managing director of Veronis Suhler Stevenson from 1994 to 2010, he mixes academic pursuits, industry board memberships. Recalling that he wanted to play for the New York Yankees as a kid – “the best baseball team in the country” and then working in TV with CBS -- . “I considered CBS  the best broadcasting organization in the country and I still do” – he said, “I felt I was playing with a major league team that was the best at its time, and now getting the GIANT award for it sort of makes me a member of
the All Star team.”

To a standing ovation, long-time publisher of  Broadcasting magazine Don West confessed to being overcome with emotion to be named a GIANT.  West gained post-WWII notoriety as the first reporter to arrive at the scene of the supposed alien invasion in Roswell, New Mexico (only to find nothing of note to report), and then went on to cover the rapidly-changing electronic media landscape,. In a short foray into television in the late 1960s, he was assistant to CBS president Frank Stanton, After leaving Broadcasting magazine in 2001, he became president of the LABF, and instrumental in setting up the ‘GIANTS of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts’ awards celebration.  

A family emergency sadly prevented honoree NPR president and CEO Jarl Mohn from attending. The award was accepted on his behalf by IRTS Foundation president and CEO, Joyce Tudryn, who also hosted the ceremony.

Greater Media’s Peter Smyth with ‘GIANTS’ honoree Michael Carter
 & LABF board member Larry Patrick

Photo Credit: Wendy Moger-Bross

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