Scott Wilkinson Blog

Requiem for a Heavyweight Posted Tue Sep 16, 2008, 7:41 PM ET

You probably don't recognize the name Mel Harris, who passed away at the age of 65 on September 6, 2008. But you most certainly know the results of his work in the broadcasting and entertainment industry. Let me tell you a bit about the impact he had on TV and movie viewers everywhere...

Born and raised on a farm in Kansas, Harris began his career as a radio DJ. After serving in Vietnam and earning a bronze star, he ran Kaiser Broadcasting stations in Cleveland and Philadelphia and spent two years at Metromedia in New York. His 1971 Ph.D. thesis explored the radical idea of having as many as 13 TV channels and how audiences—who were used to a TV universe of three or four channels at the time—might react to that much choice.

Harris moved to Paramount Pictures in 1977, where he remained in various capacities for the next 14 years. Among his many accomplishments there, he greenlighted Star Trek: The Next Generation, for which I am eternally grateful.

After leaving Paramount, Harris became president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Television Group from 1991 to 1995. He returned to Sony Pictures Entertainment as co-president and COO from 1999 to 2002. During his tenure, Sony launched the Game Show Network and became a leader in global electronic distribution.

Harris was known as a "savant on emerging media technologies." At Paramount, he pioneered the concept of selling movies to consumers on videocassette, being among the first to accurately predict that dropping the price of movies on tape from $50 to less than half that much would create a real market. He also helped launch the USA Network and satellite distribution of first-run content with Entertainment Tonight.

I met Harris briefly through our wives, both speech pathologists. When showing us around his home at a holiday party, he was as keen to point out the rusting farm implements on display as the posters for the many hit shows and movies he'd greenlighted. Having grown up on that Kansas farm, friends say he never lost his Midwestern values of honesty, humility, and hard work.

So here's to the memory of Mel Harris. May his life and work inspire generations of TV and movie execs to bring out the best that entertainment technology has to offer.

If you have an audio/video question for me, please send it to scott.wilkinson@sourceinterlink.com.

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