Coming up in the cable industry’s heyday, B+C Hall of Fame chairman William McGorry built his career in publishing the old-fashioned way: strong handshakes, stories of family, drinks after dinner and being there for his colleagues.
An Irishman and a New Yorker through and through, McGorry grew up in Queens. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he won a marksmanship award, and married his wife, Phyllis, at 21. The McGorrys had six children — one son, Tim, and five daughters, Pam, Jenny, Amy, Sarah and Regan. (“No one ever explained it to me,” McGorry joked. “I was Irish and I was Catholic.”) Phyllis wrote for the New York Daily News for some years and all of the kids worked in media at different points in their careers, a point of pride for McGorry.
McGorry’s first publishing job was with Mart Magazine, a consumer electronics trade that took advantage of McGorry’s earlier work at General Motors. He was hired as an account executive in 1981 but was quickly made publisher.
His first job in media came when Mart was being sold to Gordon Publications and McGorry jumped to Broadcast Management Engineering (BME) magazine in 1984. He stayed there for three years before that magazine was sold — to Norman Lear-owned Act 3 — and McGorry jumped again, this time to oversee two cable trade magazines that were published out of Denver: bimonthly Cablevision and monthly Communication Engineering Design (CED) magazine. In 1987, McGorry was personally welcomed to the group by cable legend Bill Daniels, who was a major cable broker and owner of cable systems and sports teams in his day. “Our industry needs these magazines,” McGorry said Daniels, who passed away in 2000 at age 79, told him. “It’s important to have two or three voices, we can’t have a single voice. I want you to do what it takes. This is a mission.”
McGorry took Daniels seriously, and the group took off. “That was a great growth period that went on for about four years,” he said.
McGorry made two key hires at that time: Joel Berger, who had been publisher of Channels Magazine, and Marianne Paskowski, hired as editorial director. About three years into the group’s run, Berger told McGorry that he had contracted AIDS and didn’t have long to live.
As a boss, he was like a good baseball manager — affable, stoic and savvy.”
Harry Jessell, Former Editor, ‘B+C’
Working with industry group Cable Positive, which ran from 1992 to 2009, McGorry and others created the Joel Berger Award. The honor was handed out every year, and eventually to McGorry. “That was a major moment in my career, one that was important to me both personally and professionally,” he said.
In 1991, Cablevision and CED were sold to Fairchild Publications, part of Capital Cities/ABC. That deal brought with it weekly Multichannel News, creating a small cable trade publishing group for McGorry to oversee. The group later launched two more publications, Wireless Week and Multichannel News International.
Disney acquired Cap Cities/ABC In 1996 and one year later, sold the cable magazines to Cahners, which brought Broadcasting magazine to the group. Broadcasting, which began in 1931, was considered to be the voice of the broadcasting industry. Cahners launched the Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1991 and renamed the magazine Broadcasting & Cable in 1993. Unbeknownst to McGorry, the Hall of Fame would become one of his lasting legacies.
McGorry’s leadership was such that he won over even those who were skeptical.
“After corporate shuffled me and Broadcasting & Cable into McGorry’s group, I was wary,” Harry Jessell, former editor of B+C and founder and editor at large at TVNewsCheck, said. “I figured that as the newcomer we would not get the same care and feeding his other magazines did. But Bill quickly allayed my concerns. He embraced the magazine, respected its long traditions and gave me his support, even though I know I stretched his patience at times. As a boss, he was like a good baseball manager — affable, stoic and savvy. He kept the clubhouse loose, gave a good pep talk and, when the game was on the line, made the right calls.”
Helming the Hall of Fame
McGorry retired from overseeing the publishing group in 2007, but remained chairman of the Hall of Fame. He held that position until this year, which will be his last as chair. One of the things he’s most proud of over his nearly two decades of overseeing the Hall of Fame is its increased focus on inducting women and people of color.
“That was a natural evolution of the business, but we were always mindful that they needed and deserved a presence in the Hall of Fame,” McGorry said.
Throughout the years, the B+C Hall of Fame has inducted many of the media industry’s finest talent and executives, including Lucille Ball, Emily Barr, Michael J. Fox, Gayle King, Hoda Kotb, Kelly Ripa, Judge Judy Sheindlin, Alex Trebek, Oprah Winfrey and so many more.
This year, McGorry himself will be inducted into the organization he so carefully tended for almost two decades.
Said Dennis Wharton, former executive VP of communications at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), who helped McGorry wrangle many a broadcaster over the years, “He’s like a fine Irish whiskey, he ages very well.”
