Robert Bennett

Adapted from The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2016 (on Mr. Bennett’s passing) – In 1972, the Federal Communications Commission, for the first time in its history, awarded a television license to a new group of operators in Boston, and Bob Bennett, among a field of elite candidates, was selected to lead the group. He emerged as that station’s principal architect, builder, manager, and owner. WCVB-TV, from the start, was conceived as a model of what local television broadcasting could be in America. It produced more than 60 hours of locally produced programming at a time when most stations were content simply to run local news and occasional documentaries.  …  WCVB-TV, which received the prestigious Peabody Award as America’s finest television station, was sold in 1981 to Metromedia for $220 million, eclipsing the highest price ever paid for a television station in the country. It became the flagship station for the Metromedia broadcasting group [and Mr. Bennett headed that company’s station group, then the largest in the nation]. … In 1985, he arranged and directed the sale of WCVB-TV to the Hearst Corporation for $450 million, which was then cited as the new high-water mark for any television station sale in the U.S.