Gerald Levin, known to many as Jerry, wasn’t flamboyant. He wasn’t characterized, as were many of his media business contemporaries, by extravagant hobbies, odd peccadillos, inspiring speeches or a spicy personal life. He could be testy, but he didn’t engage in public brawls beloved by – and between – Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch.
Levin, who died Wednesday at 84 nearly two decades after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, was a philosophy major at Haverford College who was said to be fond of quoting Camus. But he also was private and often enigmatic at a time when the industry was led by brash founder-leaders like Viacom’s Sumner Redstone and News Corp.’s Murdoch. Michael Eisner was not a founder but a big personality. Bob Iger has been called a CEO out of central casting. “Jerry Levin was not your central casting CEO,” noted one Wall Streeter.
Levin, a...
Levin, who died Wednesday at 84 nearly two decades after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, was a philosophy major at Haverford College who was said to be fond of quoting Camus. But he also was private and often enigmatic at a time when the industry was led by brash founder-leaders like Viacom’s Sumner Redstone and News Corp.’s Murdoch. Michael Eisner was not a founder but a big personality. Bob Iger has been called a CEO out of central casting. “Jerry Levin was not your central casting CEO,” noted one Wall Streeter.
Levin, a...
- 3/15/2024
- by Jill Goldsmith and Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
Gerald M. “Jerry” Levin, the former CEO of Time Warner who helped oversee its calamitous merger with AOL, died Wednesday in Long Beach, CA. He was 84.
His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his grandchild, Jake Maia Arlow. Levin had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but no details about his death were shared.
Once described as one of the most powerful media executives in the world, Levin with Steve Case orchestrated the ruinous merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000. At the time, Time Warner was the world’s largest media company while AOL was a behemoth in its own right. But the deal would go down among the worst in history, and Levin resigned from the company in 2002.
“He saw the merger with AOL as making Time Warner digital by injection,” Richard Parsons, who succeeded Levin at Time Warner, told the Nyt. “What AOL brought...
His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his grandchild, Jake Maia Arlow. Levin had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but no details about his death were shared.
Once described as one of the most powerful media executives in the world, Levin with Steve Case orchestrated the ruinous merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000. At the time, Time Warner was the world’s largest media company while AOL was a behemoth in its own right. But the deal would go down among the worst in history, and Levin resigned from the company in 2002.
“He saw the merger with AOL as making Time Warner digital by injection,” Richard Parsons, who succeeded Levin at Time Warner, told the Nyt. “What AOL brought...
- 3/14/2024
- by Lynette Rice
- Deadline Film + TV
Gerald Levin, the visionary executive in the early days of HBO whose career will be forever marred after he orchestrated the merger of Time Warner and AOL, a debacle that destroyed the value of employees’ retirement accounts and culminated in a historic $100 billion write-down, has died. He was 84.
Levin died Wednesday in a hospital, his grandchild Jake Maia Arlow told The New York Times. He had battled Parkinson’s disease since being diagnosed in 2006 and lived most recently in Long Beach, California.
Levin was an attorney who worked for a year in Iran before joining HBO at its inception in 1972 as a programming executive. He was promoted to CEO a year later, and a year after that he convinced parent company Time Inc. to take HBO to cable companies nationwide via satellite technology, earning him the nickname of “resident genius.”
The Philadelphia native and University of Pennsylvania Law School graduate...
Levin died Wednesday in a hospital, his grandchild Jake Maia Arlow told The New York Times. He had battled Parkinson’s disease since being diagnosed in 2006 and lived most recently in Long Beach, California.
Levin was an attorney who worked for a year in Iran before joining HBO at its inception in 1972 as a programming executive. He was promoted to CEO a year later, and a year after that he convinced parent company Time Inc. to take HBO to cable companies nationwide via satellite technology, earning him the nickname of “resident genius.”
The Philadelphia native and University of Pennsylvania Law School graduate...
- 3/14/2024
- by Paul Bond
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In the past couple of years, Reese Witherspoon took a hiking-filled girls trip in the Costa Rican mountains; Adam Scott fell in love with the country’s coffee; Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly went on an ayahuasca journey; Zac Efron filmed a Down to Earth With Zac Efron episode in an Alajuela Province sustainable commune; Emma Roberts eased into “the most beautiful reset,” she posted; Molly Sims, Netflix’s Scott Stuber and their kids zip-lined over the Tempisque River; and Natasha Lyonne, Freeform president Tara Duncan and Ronan Farrow rode horses on the beach. Other stars who have visited the country include Diane Kruger and Norman Reedus, Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth, Matt Damon and Shakira.
“Costa Rica is on everyone’s bucket list,” says Alicia Repetto of Costa Rica hospitality group Casa Chameleon Hotels. “The country has so many things to offer with wonderful sceneries that change in a short drive.
“Costa Rica is on everyone’s bucket list,” says Alicia Repetto of Costa Rica hospitality group Casa Chameleon Hotels. “The country has so many things to offer with wonderful sceneries that change in a short drive.
- 11/18/2023
- by Kathryn Romeyn
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Verizon said Monday that it’s clinched a deal to sell its media assets to Apollo Global Management and related entities for $5 billion. Verizon will retain a 10% stake in the company, which will be known as Yahoo at close of the transaction and continue to be led by CEO Guru Gowrappan.
Verizon Media brands are led by Yahoo and AOL, two companies with a complex and difficult past.
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by electrical engineering students Jerry Yang and David Filo as a website called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. It became a portal and grew rapidly during the 1990s, riding the Internet boom, but also the crash in 2001, and had a long succession of CEOs including Yang, former Warner Bros chairman Terry Semel, Caro Bartz, Tim Morse, Scott Thompson, Ross Levinsohn and Marissa Mayer.
AOL launched even earlier, in the late 1980s, and was...
Verizon Media brands are led by Yahoo and AOL, two companies with a complex and difficult past.
Yahoo was founded in 1994 by electrical engineering students Jerry Yang and David Filo as a website called Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. It became a portal and grew rapidly during the 1990s, riding the Internet boom, but also the crash in 2001, and had a long succession of CEOs including Yang, former Warner Bros chairman Terry Semel, Caro Bartz, Tim Morse, Scott Thompson, Ross Levinsohn and Marissa Mayer.
AOL launched even earlier, in the late 1980s, and was...
- 5/3/2021
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Sun Valley, Idaho — The black and silver SUVs packed with CEOs started rolling in about noon. Allen & Co.’s annual gathering of media and tech titans at the Sun Valley Lodge resort here brings together several combatants in active industry battles that have observers transfixed.
Will Comcast’s Brian Roberts and Disney’s Bob Iger wind up talking in the halls about their escalating bidding war for Rupert Murdoch‘s 21st Century Fox? Will Shari Redstone and Leslie Moonves, now fighting each other in court over control of CBS Corp., meet on a resort pathway or in a conference session? Several conference attendees admitted privately that the corporate soap operas have been the buzz of the confab in the early going.
Redstone and Moonves arrived at the lodge within an hour or two of each other. The same was true for Roberts and Murdoch. Murdoch pulled in to the circular driveway with his wife,...
Will Comcast’s Brian Roberts and Disney’s Bob Iger wind up talking in the halls about their escalating bidding war for Rupert Murdoch‘s 21st Century Fox? Will Shari Redstone and Leslie Moonves, now fighting each other in court over control of CBS Corp., meet on a resort pathway or in a conference session? Several conference attendees admitted privately that the corporate soap operas have been the buzz of the confab in the early going.
Redstone and Moonves arrived at the lodge within an hour or two of each other. The same was true for Roberts and Murdoch. Murdoch pulled in to the circular driveway with his wife,...
- 7/11/2018
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
Sun Valley, Idaho — Shari Redstone didn’t stop to talk. Nor did Brian Roberts or Rupert Murdoch offer any crumbs to reporters waiting Tuesday afternoon along the edge of the duck pond outside the entrance of the Sun Valley Lodge, where media and tech moguls are gathering this week for the annual Allen & Co. conference in this mountainous resort area.
The business world is waiting with bated breath for any hints of the mood inside the conference this year, what with so many high-powered CEOs in various stages of battle coming together in close quarters for inspiration from panels and speakers and a little perspiration via outdoor recreation options.
One CEO who did engage with the journos held at a distance from the invitation-only confab was Steve Case, the former AOL chief who now heads investment firm Revolution. With At&T’s acquisition of Time Warner still weeks old, Case...
The business world is waiting with bated breath for any hints of the mood inside the conference this year, what with so many high-powered CEOs in various stages of battle coming together in close quarters for inspiration from panels and speakers and a little perspiration via outdoor recreation options.
One CEO who did engage with the journos held at a distance from the invitation-only confab was Steve Case, the former AOL chief who now heads investment firm Revolution. With At&T’s acquisition of Time Warner still weeks old, Case...
- 7/10/2018
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
AOL boss Steve Case, you’ve got hate mail — according to a study by crowd-sourced business insights firm Owler 19. Tim Armstrong, AOL — 44.4/100 18. Charlie Vogt, Imagine Communications — 53.5 /100 17. nm2880042 autoBrian L. Roberts[/link], Comcast — 56.9 /100 16. Richard L. Plepler, HBO — 60.5 / 100 15. Peter Hamilton, Tune — 62.5/100 14. James C. Smith, Thomson Reuters — 66.8/100 13. Thomas Dooley, Viacom — 70.5/100 In November 2016, Bob Bakish was named acting CEO when Dooley stepped down just months after becoming interim chief executive following the ouster of Philippe Dauman. 11. Mike Hopkins, Hulu — 71.5/100 (tie) 11. Jeffrey Bewkes, Time Warner —...
- 6/1/2017
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
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