ROBERT C(HARLES) WRIGHT Born in Hempstead, New York, U.S.A., 23 April 1943. Holy Cross College, B.A. in history1965; University of Virginia, LL.B. 1968. Married: Suzanne Werner, 1967; children: Kate, Christopher and Maggie. Served in U.S. Army Reserve. Admitted to Bar: New York, 1968; Virginia, 1968; Massachusetts, 1970; New Jersey, 1971. Attorney, General Electric Company, 1969-70, and 73-79; general manager of plastics sales department, 1976-80; law secretary to chief judge U.S. District Court, New Jersey, 1970-73; president, Cox Cable Communications, Atlanta, 1979-83; executive vice-president, Cox Communications, 1980-83; vice-president and general manager, GE housewares, electronics and cable TV operations, 1983-84; president and chief executive officer, GE Financial Services, Inc., 1984-86; president and chief executive officer, NBC, New York City, from 1986. Address: NBC, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112.

Further Reading

Auletta, Ken. Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost their Way. New York: Random House, 1991.

Goldberg, Robert, and Gerald Jay Goldberg. Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings and Rather and the Evening News. New York: Birch Lane, 1990.

Tichy, Noel M., and Stratford Sherman. Control Your Own Destiny Or Someone Else Will: How Jack Welch Is Making General Electric the World's Most Competitive Corporation. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

 

See also National Broadcasting Company; United States: Networks

 

   

Robert C. Wright succeeded the legendary Grant Tinker as president of NBC in 1986 when "the peacock network" was acquired by General Electric for $6.3 billion. Under General Electric chief executive officer Jack Welch, Wright immediately began to reshape a new NBC, moving it out of radio altogether and headlong into cable television. In 1988 Wright allied with Cablevision Systems, Inc., in a $300 million deal which led in the following year to the start up of a 24-hour cable network, CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel). He also acquired shares of Visnews, an international video news service, and immediately initiated selling NBC News products to hundreds of clients overseas, and of the cable channel, Court TV.

The first half of the 1990s were equally as busy for Wright. The Australian Television Network became NBC's first overseas affiliate. In 1991, NBC bought out CNBC's chief rival, the Financial News Network, for well in excess of $100 million, closed it down, and merged its core components into CNBC. He invested in the Super Channel, an advertising- supported satellite service based in London, England; began NBC Asia; and poured millions into NBC's News Channel; a TV wire service based in Charlotte, North Carolina. But the biggest deal during the first half of the 1990s came when Wright and Bill Gates announced a multimillion dollar alliance of NBC and Microsoft to create an all-news channel, MSNBC, to rival CNN around the world.

Wright, under the tutelage of Jack Welch, remade NBC within ten years and served as the longest reigning NBC head since David Sarnoff. And like mentor Welch, Wright came from a Catholic household (from suburban Long Island), was the son of an engineer, had not gone to an Ivy league college, was devoted to GE, and was no fan of television. Wright had entered the GE corporate ladder as a staff attorney, but quickly moved to the decision-making side, running GE's plastic sales division (1978-1980), then as the head of the housewares and audio equipment division (1983-1984), and promoted to the presidency of GE Financial Services (1984-86).

Wright's first ten years at NBC were not without failure. Most notably he led NBC to well in excess of $50 million in losses by way of its pay-per-view venture "Triplecast" during the 1992 Olympics. Still, he is credited with transforming NBC, and maneuvering NBC through a key intersection of the technological, economic, political, social, and cultural forces that helped shape television in the United States, at the end of the 20th century.

--Douglas Gomery