R.I.P.: Radio/TV Entrepreneur Bud Paxson Has Died

Bud Paxson

Radio/TV pioneer Lowell "Bud" Paxson who helped popularize home shopping, has died.

He was 80-years-of-age.

A native of New York, Paxson began his career as an owner of WACK 1420 AM, a 500-watt radio station in the village of Newark near Rochester, NY. His next attempt at media ownership was TV station WNYP (channel 26) in Jamestown, New York; Paxson, who bought the station in 1966, attempted to affiliate the station with the CTV Television Network out of Canada (a first for an American television station); by 1969, the station had failed.

Paxson later emerged as the owner of a small AM radio station, WWQT 1470 AM, in Clearwater, FL. There, in 1977, an advertiser had plenty of product to sell—avocado-green-colored can openers—but ran out of funds to purchase airtime. Paxson instructed talk-show host Bob Circosta, who had a talk show from noon until 3:00 PM, to sell the can openers live over the airwaves, and both men were stunned at the audience response. All 112 can openers were purchased within the hour on August 28, 1977.

Sensing the sales potential of live, on-air product selling, Paxson and financier Roy Speer co-founded a local cable TV channel (channel 52 on Vision Cable) in 1982 that sold products directly to Florida viewers, and then launched nationwide in 1985. The channel was the Home Shopping Club, later Home Shopping Network (currently known as HSN), and Paxson's former radio man Bob Circosta was tapped as the network's first-ever host. HSN soon became a billion dollar juggernaut and began the home shopping / electronic retailing industry. In 1996, the two sold HSN to Hollywood executive Barry Diller.

HSN Studio

Paxson then formed Paxson Communications Corporation (currently known as Ion Media Networks) and bought radio stations, TV stations, and billboards, primarily in Florida.  He owned more than 40 stations in Florida, including Miami’s then-“Zeta” WZTA and “Love 94”WLVE, and Orlando’s WJRR.  Paxson sold the radio stations to Clear Channel in 1997 for nearly $700 million, but continued to buy TV stations and they became the backbone of Pax TV, a broadcast network promising family-friendly programming, an alternative to the sex and violence he thought was rife on TV.  The channel also reflected Paxson's background as an evangelical Christian (since 1985), which he spoke of openly.

However, the network never received anywhere near the ratings or advertising revenue of the other networks. In addition, PAX TV lost a few affiliates, such as when Paxson sold its Dayton, Ohio, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, stations to ACME Communications so that group could affiliate them with The WB (though PAX TV programming continued to air overnight on those stations for a few years), and the network was unable to offer their programming in some markets, like St, Louis, Charlotte and Pittsburgh.

On June 28, 2005, PAX TV became "i: Independent Television". In November of that year, NBCUniversal, which owned 22 percent of i, began a nine-month period during which it could buy the rest of the network. Possibly sensing that NBCU would do so, and beset with lawsuits over the operation of i, Paxson resigned from the company he founded.

In addition to his programming and sales accomplishments, Paxson was a driving force behind the landmark must-carry language in the 1992 Cable Act and the 1996 Communications Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1997 and transformed television in the modern age to ensure local community voices were not lost.

NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith said in a statement: "Broadcasters have lost a friend and a legend in the passing of Bud Paxson, who was a tenacious advocate for over-the-air radio and televsion. Bud's support for program carriage rules as part of the 1992 Cable Act helped sustain diverse voices on the airwaves and allowed free and local broadcasting to remain a competitive force in today's multichannel world. NAB mourns the loss of a true giant of broadcasting."