Jamie Kellner, the charismatic television executive who led the founding of the Fox and The WB broadcast networks, and who also spearheaded a late-career transformation of Turner and CNN, has died at 77.
According to the Penske Showbiz trades, Kellner succumbed to cancer. He'd been retired since 2004 and was living in Montecito, Calif., which is near Santa Barbara.
Born in Brooklyn, raised Irish-Catholic in Long Island, and schooled in the CBS Training Program, Kellner was running the syndication division at Orion Pictures in 1986 when Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller hired him to create what seemed unheard of at the time — a fourth broadcast television network.
As founding president and chief operating officer of Fox Broadcasting, Kellner used his insight into the U.S. station market to build out Fox's distribution infrastructure. Meanwhile, his relationships with up-and-coming talent gestated a string of brash, youth-oriented hit shows, including Married ... With Children, In Living Color, The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place.
He left the Fox Inc. board in 1993, but was soon given the keys to start a fifth network, with Warner Bros. controlling 64% of The WB, station owner Tribune owning 25% … and Kellner controlling 11%.
At The WB, Kellner mentored a new generation of television executives -- Suzanne Daniels and Garth Ancier, among them -- while creating a new wave of zeitgeist defining shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, Felicity and Charmed.
In 2001, five years before The WB was combined with rival upstart UPN to form The CW, Kellner relocated to Atlanta, where — amid the tumult of the Time Warner merger with AOL — he modernized Turner Broadcasting and CNN, helping the latter compete against Fox News in the fast-paced, post-9/11 cable news business.
Kellner is survived by his wife, Julie, with whom he shared a child. He also had a child from a previous marriage.
