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Broadcasting Executive Jamie Kellner, who helped to launch both FOX and the now defunct WB Network passed away this weekend according to multiple reports, including Variety.
In the professional wrestling periphery, Kellner is best known as the executive who took over Turner Broadcasting after parent company Time Warner merged with AOL - making the decision to cancel World Championship Wrestling programming, including Monday Nitro on TNT, Thunder on TBS and WCW Saturday Night.
That decision, made to help re-shape the networks, ended the near-30 year run of pro wrestling on Turner Broadcasting, a genre that helped WTBS find its initia audience after Ted Turner launched a satellite to take that network national via cable television. With WCW programming gone, the promotion was quickly flipped and sold to The WWF. The plan had been to sell WCW to Fuscient Media with Eric Bischoff at the helm, running regularly out of Las Vegas. Instead, with the programming canceled, Fuscient pulled out of the announced sale and WWF took the assets for what amounted to a song and a dance.
Professional Wrestling would not return to TNT and TBS until 2019 with All Elite Wrestling. While the death of WCW was the result of a thousand cuts, it was Kellner who officially declared it diseased.
Beyond pro wrestling, Kellner helped launch eternally popular television series, including, among others, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons, Married...with Children, Felicity and In Living Colour.
The Hollywood Reporter's article on Kellner's passing noted his death was a result of cancer. He was 77 at the time of his death.
PWInsider.com sends our deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Thanks to Jeff Wirtheim.
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