Walter Annenberg

From New World Encyclopedia
Revision as of 17:43, 6 December 2006 by Jennifer Tanabe (talk | contribs) (copied from Wikipedia)


Walter H. Annenberg KBE (March 13, 1908–October 1, 2002) was an American billionaire publisher, philanthropist, and diplomat.

He was the son of Sarah and Moses "Moe" Annenberg, who published The Daily Racing Form and purchased The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1936.

Early life

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Walter Annenberg attended high school at the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, graduating in 1927. He attended college at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1931.

Personal life

His first marriage, to Veronica Dunkelman, failed in 1949 after 11 years. His only son Roger committed suicide in 1962. (Harvard University, where Roger was a student at the time, now has a Roger Annenberg Hall in his honor.) Walter's marriage to his second wife, Leonore "Lee" Rosentiel, was, by all accounts, a lasting and fulfilling relationship. Lee was a niece of Harry Cohn, founder and successful mogul of Columbia Pictures.

Annenberg led a lavish lifestyle, enjoying his riches. His "Sunnylands" winter estate in Rancho Mirage, California near Palm Springs hosted gatherings with such people as Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Charles, Prince of Wales. It was Annenberg who introduced Reagan to Margaret Thatcher, and the Reagans often celebrated New Year's Eve with the Annenbergs. Sunnylands covers 400 guard-gated acres on a 650-acre parcel surrounded by a pink stucco wall at the northwest corner of Frank Sinatra Drive and Bob Hope Drive; the property includes a golf course.

Business life

At age 32, after his father's death, he took over the family businesses and even made successes out of some that had been failing. He bought other print media as well as radio stations and television stations, successfully managing them as well.

His biggest success was the creation of TV Guide in 1952, which he started against the advice of his financial advisors. He also created and made a fortune from Seventeen magazine.

While he ran his publishing empire as a business, he was not afraid to use it for his own ends. One of his publications, The Philadelphia Inquirer, was influential in ridding Philadelphia of its corrupt city government in 1949. It also attacked Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s when most other publications feared McCarthy. It campaigned for the Marshall Plan after World War II. He also made many enemies: activist Ralph Nader, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, boxer Sonny Liston, and many politicians became "non-existent" in his newspapers. Their names were never mentioned, and they were even air-brushed out of group photos.[1]


In 1966, Annenberg used the pages of the Inquirer to cast doubt on the candidacy of Democrat Milton Shapp, for governor of Pennsylvania. Shapp was highly critical of the proposed merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the New York Central and was pushing the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission to stop it. Annenberg, a significant shareholder of the Pennsylvania Railroad, wanted to see the merger go through. Unfavorable press coverage of Shapp, including presenting false charges of a stay in a mental asylum and Shapp's subsequent denial, contributed to his defeat by Raymond P. Shaffer.[1]


After Richard M. Nixon appointed him as ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1970, Annenberg sold the Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News to Knight Newspapers for $55 million.

TV Guide

TV Guide is the name of two North American weekly magazines about television programming, one in the United States and one in Canada. Although the magazines share the same name and a similar logo, they are owned by different companies and publish distinct editorial content. The magazine was started by Walter Annenberg.

In addition to TV listings, the publications feature television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews. Some even featured horoscope listings and crossword puzzles.


The national TV Guide was first published on April 3, 1953. Its premiere issue cover featured a photograph of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's newborn son, Desi Arnaz, Jr.

TV Guide as a national publication resulted from Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications' purchase of numerous regional television listing publications such as TV List, TV Forecast, TV Digest, Television Guide and TV Guide. The launch as a national publication with local listings in April, 1953 became an almost instant success with the magazine becoming the most read and circulated magazine in the country by the 1960's. The initial cost was just 15¢ per copy. In addition to subscriptions, TV Guide was a weekly selection from its familiar rack at grocery store check-out counters nationwide; into the 1970s, each week's issue's features were promoted in a television commercial. Under the ownership of Triangle Publications TV Guide continued to grow not only in circulation, but in recognition as the authority on television programming with articles from both staff and contributing writers.

The TV Guide logo remains one of the most recognized publication logos today. Over the decades the shape of the logo has changed to reflect the modernization of the television screen. At first, the logo had various color backgrounds (usually black, white, blue or green) until the familiar red background became a standard in the 1960's with occasional changes to accommodate a special edition.

Under Triangle Publications, TV Guide was first based in a small office in downtown Philadelphia until moving to more spacious national headquarters in Radnor, Pennsylvania in the late 1950's. The new facility, complete with a large lighted TV Guide logo at the building's entrance, was home to management, editors, production personnel, subscription processors as well as a vast computer system holding data on every show and movie available for listing in the popular weekly publication. Printing of the national color section of TV Guide took place at Triangle's Gravure Division plant adjacent to Triangle's landmark Philadelphia Inquirer Building on North Broad Street in Philadelphia. The color section was then sent to regional printers to be wrapped around the local listing sections. Triangle's Gravure Division was known for performing some of the highest quality printing in the industry with almost always perfect registration.

Triangle Publications was a well-respected and growing communications firm which, in addition to TV Guide owned The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, 16 radio and television stations (WFIL AM-FM-TV Philadelphia, PA, WNHC AM-FM-TV New Haven, CT, KFRE AM-FM-TV Fresno, CA, WNBF AM-FM-TV Binghamton, NY, WFBG AM-FM-TV Altoona, PA and WLYH-TV Lancaster/Lebanon, PA) The Daily Racing Form, The Morning Telegraph, and Seventeen magazine and various cable TV interests. It was under Triangle's ownership of WFIL in Philadelphia that Dick Clark and American Bandstand came to popularity. Triangle Publications sold its Philadelphia newspapers to Knight Newspapers in 1969, its radio and television stations during the early 1970's to Capital Cities Communications and various other interests retaining only TV Guide, Seventeen Magazine and the Daily Racing Form which were also later sold to News America Corporation in the late 1980's in one of the largest media deals of the time.

In the 1990s, TV Guide acquired the Prevue Channel and renamed it the TV Guide Channel. Like its predecessor, it scrolls TV listings on the bottom portion of the screen. However the top portion now features celebrity gossip, movie talk, and commercials (in addition to the movie trailers that once took up the bulk of the Prevue Channel's programing). Until recently, the programs on the TV Guide Channel generally only lasted from 30 seconds to a minute, and thus were usually scheduled to play on the hour (for instance a show might appear at 12:45 and again at 1:45). Today, TV Guide Channel runs full length programming, including programs such as the weekly entertainment news magazine The 411, and red carpet event coverage hosted by Joan and Melissa Rivers.

From its inception until 2003, TV Guide offered listings for the entire week, 24 hours a day. Beginning with the June 21,2003 issue (in just a few select markets), the 5am-5pm Monday-Friday listings were condensed down to four grids: 5am-8am, 8am-11am, 11am-2pm, 2pm-5pm. If programming differed from one weekday to the next, "Various Programs" was listed. This change became permanent in all TV Guide editions beginning with the 2003 Fall Preview issue.

Further modifications, none beneficial to the magazine's listings, continued to take place. Beginning in January 2004, the midnight-5am listings (and also 5am-8am on the Saturday and Sunday listings) did not include any out-of-town broadcast stations, just the edition's home market. Starting in July 2004 the overnight listings were taken out entirely, replaced by a grid that ran from 11pm-2am and had the edition's home market broadcast stations, with a handful of cable stations. It also listed a small selection of late-night movies on some channels. The daytime grids also changed from the 5am-5pm listings, to 7am-7pm. In early 2005 more channels were added to the prime-time and late night grids. The magazine also changed format to start the week's issue with Sunday listings, rather than Saturday listings, changing a tradition that started from the magazine's first issue.

On May 18, 2005, TV Guide launched TV Guide Talk, a weekly podcast available for free. The podcast is headlined by TV Guide reporter/personality Michael Ausiello, and is co-hosted by his co-workers, Angel Cohn, Daniel Manu, and Maitland McDonagh

On July 26, 2005, Gemstar announced that TV Guide would be change in format from its digest size format to a larger full-size national magazine that will offer more stories and fewer TV listings. All 140 local editions were also eliminated, being replaced by two editions, one for Eastern/Central time zones and one for Pacific/Mountain. The change in format was attributed to the increase in the Internet, cable TV channels (like TV Guide Channel), Electronic Program Guides, TiVo, as the sources of choice for viewers' program listings. The new version of TV Guide hit stores on October 17, 2005, and featured Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on the cover. The listings format, now consisted entirely of grids, also changed format to start the week's issue with Monday listings, rather than Sunday listings.

TV Guide is owned by Gemstar-TV Guide International, Inc., which is in turn owned partially by News Corporation.


Seventeen Magazine

Seventeen is an American young women's magazine targeted at the teenage group. It was first published in 1944 and is today considered by many to be the most popular magazine for teenage girls although it faces growing competition. Its editor in chief is Atoosa Rubenstein.

Its content includes fashion and what stores to look for the latest trends, celebrities, beauty that includes how to take care of your skin, different hair styles, and make-up wearing advice, lifestyle advice, a nutrition section that includes healthy foods to eat and how to maintain your weight, a sex and body section, and horoscopes. It also includes quizzes about yourself and your love life. Its tone is light and positive, and is sometimes considered focused on white teens, although the editors are believed to be consciously broadening the content. The article length is kept deliberately brief, high quality photographs emphasize regular celebrity and clothing themes and it is well supported by advertising keen to reach the big-spending demographic of young women.

Founded by Walter Annenberg, the newspaper publisher, it remained in his control for many decades through Triangle Publications until he sold the group to Rupert Murdoch. The magazine was sold in 1991 during Murdoch's debt crisis to the KKR controlled Primedia company. The poor performance of Primedia, prompted the sale of Seventeen magazine to The Hearst Corporation, one of the world's biggest media conglomerates founded by William Randolph Hearst for $182.4 million.

One of the magazine's international editions is the Philippine version published by Summit Media. There's also a Hispanic American edition published by Editorial Televisa.

In the November 2006 issue, Teddy Geiger will serve as the cover model, and he will be the first male cover in five years.


Philanthropy

Even while an active businessman, he had an interest in public service. Richard Nixon appointed him ambassador to the Court of St. James's in 1969, and he became quite popular in Britain, eventually being knighted. His wife Lee was named by President Ronald Reagan as the State Department's chief of protocol.

After the sale of the Philadelphia papers, he established the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He also endowed another school for communication at the University of Southern California. He became a champion of public television, gaining many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Reagan and the Linus Pauling Medal for Humanitarianism.

In 1989, he created the Annenberg Foundation, then, in 1993, he created the Annenberg Challenge, a $500 million, five-year reform effort and the largest single gift ever made to American public education.

In 1998 he sold TV Guide, Seventeen, and a few other publications to Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch for $3 billion, announcing that he would devote the rest of his life to philanthropy. The Annenberg Foundation gave away billions, mostly to educational institutions.

"Education...", he once said, "holds civilization together." Many school buildings, libraries, theaters, hospitals, and museums all over the United States now bear Annenberg's name. It is estimated that he gave over $2 billion in his lifetime. His collection of French impressionist art is valued at approximately $1 billion and has been donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Annenberg died at his home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, in October 2002, at the age of 94. He was survived by his wife Lee, daughter Wallis, and two sisters, Enid Haupt and Evelyn Hall. Including those by his wife's daughters from her first marriage (Diane Deshong and Elizabeth Kabler), he left behind seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  1. 1.0 1.1 Ogden, Christopher (1999). Legacy: A Biography of Moses and Walter Annenberg. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-63379-8. 

External links


Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.