Wednesday, December 4, 2013

R.I.P.: Seattle Broadcasting Pioneer Lloyd Cooney

Lloyd Cooney
Long before partisan cable news, KIRO-AM/TV President Lloyd Cooney sat arrow-straight before the camera to deliver editorials about family values and limited government, making him a polarizing figure in Seattle.

Most viewers never met the man behind the scenes, a motorcyclist and skydiver who shoved local news toward the future.

Mr. Cooney died Nov. 25. He was 90, according to The Seattle Times.

In 1969 he adopted the “Eyewitness News” format, where anchors and field reporters appeared live, using microwave transmissions. KIRO was among the earliest to use videotape instead of film, and deployed helicopters for television and radio-traffic reporting, said Mr. Cooney’s longtime colleague, Ken Hatch. Walter Cronkite criticized the bantering Eyewitness News format, to which Mr. Cooney replied that ratings growth at stations like KIRO “should say something to Cronkite.”

He served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne during World War II, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He married Betty in 1946. He died 19-days after his wife.

After years as general manager at KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, Mr. Cooney came to KIRO in 1963. The station was third in the market, so he started a campaign to create buzz and win viewers, and his editorials were part of that, his daughter said.

Cooney retired from television in 1980

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