BARRY DILLER
Name: Barry Diller
Born: 2 February 1942
Barry Diller (born February 2, 1942 in San Francisco, California) is a media
executive responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company.
Barry Diller was born in Beverly Hills, California, where he was raised and
began his career through a family connection in the mailroom of the William
Morris Agency after dropping out of UCLA after one semester.
He was hired by ABC in 1966 and was soon placed in charge of negotiating
broadcast rights to feature films. He was promoted to vice president in charge
of feature films and program development in 1969. In this position, Diller
created the ABC Movie of the Week, pioneering the concept of the made-for-television
movie through a regular series of 90-minute films produced exclusively for
television.
Diller served for ten years as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Paramount Pictures Corporation starting in 1974. With Diller at the helm, the
studio produced hit television programs such as Laverne & Shirley (1976), Taxi (1978),
and Cheers (1982) and films ranging from Saturday Night Fever (1977), and Grease
(1978) to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequel Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom (1984) to Terms of Endearment (1983) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984).
From October 1984 to April 1992, he held the positions of Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Fox, Inc, parent company of Fox Broadcasting Company and 20th
Century Fox, where he greenlighted hits like The Simpsons. Diller quit 20th
Century-Fox in 1992 and purchased a $25 million stake in QVC teleshopping
network. Diller resigned from QVC in 1995.
Diller is currently the Chairman of Expedia and the Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, an interactive commerce conglomerate and the
parent of companies including ServiceMagic, Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster,
Match.com, Citysearch, LendingTree and CollegeHumor. In 2005, IAC/InterActiveCorp
acquired Ask.com, marking a strategic move into the Internet search category.
Diller has been on the board of The Coca-Cola Company since 2002. The new
headquarters of IAC/InterActiveCorp was designed by Frank Gehry and opened in
2007 at 18th Street and the West Side Highway in Manhattan's Chelsea
neighborhood. The western half of the block is dedicated to the building which
stands several stories taller than the massive Chelsea Piers Sporting complex
just across the West Side Highway. The extra floors guarantee a panoramic Hudson
River view from Diller's top-floor office.
In 2001, Diller married fashion designer and longtime friend Diane von
Fürstenberg.
In 2003, on the PBS TV program NOW with Bill Moyers, Diller vocalized a strong
warning against media consolidation. In the interview he referred to media
ownership by a few big corporations as an oligarchy, saying the concentration
strangles new ideas.
Barry Diller was "the highest-paid executive [of 2005 fiscal year]" according to
a report by The New York Times on Thursday, October 26, 2006 with a total
compensation package in excess of $295 million. In an opinion article in the
New York Times of Nov 7, 2006, Nicholas D. Kristof awarded him his annual
Michael Eisner Award, consisting of a $5 shower curtain, for corporate rapacity
and laziness.
Diller is responsible for what the media dubs "The Killer Dillers" -- people
whom Diller mentored and who later became big-time media executives in their own
right. Examples include Michael Eisner (who was President & COO of Paramount
Pictures while Diller was Chairman & CEO of Paramount Pictures, who went on to
become Chairman & CEO of The Walt Disney Company), Dawn Steel (future head of
Columbia Pictures and the first woman to run a movie studio, who worked under
Diller at Paramount), Jeffrey Katzenberg (head of PDI/DreamWorks Animation,
principal of DreamWorks SKG, former head of Walt Disney Studios, and a head of
production of Paramount under Diller), Garth Ancier, President of BBC America,
and Don Simpson, who was President of Production at Paramount under Diller and
Eisner, was also included -- he later went on to run a production company based
on the Disney lot with Jerry Bruckheimer.
Name: Barry Diller
Born: 2 February 1942
Barry Diller (born February 2, 1942 in San Francisco, California) is a media
executive responsible for the creation of Fox Broadcasting Company.
Barry Diller was born in Beverly Hills, California, where he was raised and
began his career through a family connection in the mailroom of the William
Morris Agency after dropping out of UCLA after one semester.
He was hired by ABC in 1966 and was soon placed in charge of negotiating
broadcast rights to feature films. He was promoted to vice president in charge
of feature films and program development in 1969. In this position, Diller
created the ABC Movie of the Week, pioneering the concept of the made-for-television
movie through a regular series of 90-minute films produced exclusively for
television.
Diller served for ten years as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Paramount Pictures Corporation starting in 1974. With Diller at the helm, the
studio produced hit television programs such as Laverne & Shirley (1976), Taxi (1978),
and Cheers (1982) and films ranging from Saturday Night Fever (1977), and Grease
(1978) to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and its sequel Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom (1984) to Terms of Endearment (1983) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984).
From October 1984 to April 1992, he held the positions of Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Fox, Inc, parent company of Fox Broadcasting Company and 20th
Century Fox, where he greenlighted hits like The Simpsons. Diller quit 20th
Century-Fox in 1992 and purchased a $25 million stake in QVC teleshopping
network. Diller resigned from QVC in 1995.
Diller is currently the Chairman of Expedia and the Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp, an interactive commerce conglomerate and the
parent of companies including ServiceMagic, Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster,
Match.com, Citysearch, LendingTree and CollegeHumor. In 2005, IAC/InterActiveCorp
acquired Ask.com, marking a strategic move into the Internet search category.
Diller has been on the board of The Coca-Cola Company since 2002. The new
headquarters of IAC/InterActiveCorp was designed by Frank Gehry and opened in
2007 at 18th Street and the West Side Highway in Manhattan's Chelsea
neighborhood. The western half of the block is dedicated to the building which
stands several stories taller than the massive Chelsea Piers Sporting complex
just across the West Side Highway. The extra floors guarantee a panoramic Hudson
River view from Diller's top-floor office.
In 2001, Diller married fashion designer and longtime friend Diane von
Fürstenberg.
In 2003, on the PBS TV program NOW with Bill Moyers, Diller vocalized a strong
warning against media consolidation. In the interview he referred to media
ownership by a few big corporations as an oligarchy, saying the concentration
strangles new ideas.
Barry Diller was "the highest-paid executive [of 2005 fiscal year]" according to
a report by The New York Times on Thursday, October 26, 2006 with a total
compensation package in excess of $295 million. In an opinion article in the
New York Times of Nov 7, 2006, Nicholas D. Kristof awarded him his annual
Michael Eisner Award, consisting of a $5 shower curtain, for corporate rapacity
and laziness.
Diller is responsible for what the media dubs "The Killer Dillers" -- people
whom Diller mentored and who later became big-time media executives in their own
right. Examples include Michael Eisner (who was President & COO of Paramount
Pictures while Diller was Chairman & CEO of Paramount Pictures, who went on to
become Chairman & CEO of The Walt Disney Company), Dawn Steel (future head of
Columbia Pictures and the first woman to run a movie studio, who worked under
Diller at Paramount), Jeffrey Katzenberg (head of PDI/DreamWorks Animation,
principal of DreamWorks SKG, former head of Walt Disney Studios, and a head of
production of Paramount under Diller), Garth Ancier, President of BBC America,
and Don Simpson, who was President of Production at Paramount under Diller and
Eisner, was also included -- he later went on to run a production company based
on the Disney lot with Jerry Bruckheimer.