Robert W. Pittman was listed in Advertising Age’s spring 1995 special issue on the 50th anniversary of television as one of “50 Who Made a Difference” in the history of television. Known as “the father of MTV,” at age 27 he created the Music Television cable network. MTV revitalized the music business and spawned the music video industry, which in turn influenced an entire new generation of television programming, production, and commercials that appealed to the so-called MTV generation of young viewers.

Pittman began his remarkable career at age 15 as a radio disc jockey in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. From there he went to Milwaukee, then Detroit, and at 18 got his first job in programming, as the program director for WPEZ-FM in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He took the contemporary-music-format radio station to the top of the ratings in its younger target demographic area. He then moved to Chicago and, at the age of 20, programmed country music on NBC-owned WMAQ-AM, where the station shot up from 22nd to 3rd. WMAQ’s success is considered one of the major programming turnaround success stories in radio history.

Pittman duplicated the phenomenal success of WMAQ-AM when he was given the responsibility of programming WMAQ’s co-owned FM station, WKQX, late in 1975, when he was 22. In one rating book he beat the longtime album-oriented-rock (AOR) leader in the market and made a debut near the top of the target demographic ratings. In 1977 NBC sent Pittman to New York to program the floundering WNBC-AM. Once again the “Boy Wonder,” as he was known in radio circles, led the contemporary-music-and-personality-format station, WNBC, to the top of the ratings in its target groups. Many knowledgeable radio programmers and historians consider Pittman to have been the most successful radio program director ever, primarily because of his spectacular success in a variety of formats.

His unusual combination of creative and analytic brilliance made him a rare programmer. A research-oriented manager, he also understood and interacted well with the creative talents and egos of people in the music industry, disk jockeys, and personalities such as Don Imus (whom Pittman was instrumental in firing and then rehiring at WNBC-AM). Pittman’s varied talents led John Lack, the executive vice president of Warner Satellite Entertainment Company (WASEC), to hire Pittman as the programmer for the Movie Channel in 1979, giving him his first job in television. Although Lack had conceived of doing an all-music channel filled with related programs, it was Pittman who developed the concept of an all-video channel, where record company-produced videos would be programmed in the same fashion as records on a radio station.

As much as—and perhaps more—than the music, it was the image, attitude, and style that made MTV an instant hit with the antiestablishment, antiauthoritarian, under-30 audience it targeted. The network became a cultural icon, the first network expressly designed to target young audiences. From the beginning, Pittman’s genius was in positioning MTV to be different from the traditional networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). He hired cutting-edge, avant-garde production houses to create logos that would be instantaneously recognizable because they were not network logos, not traditional graphics, symbols, or icons, and thus not connected with the traditional networks in any way. He made sure it would be impossible for any young person to click by MTV on a television set and mistake it for any other network or station; immediate recognition and a unique look were his goals.

Another facet of Pittman’s brilliance was his ability to conceptualize programming. He postulated a new theory to explain how young people who grew up with television consumed it differently from their parents. The older generation, he suggested, watched TV as they read books, in a linear way. The new television generation, he believed, processed TV in a nonlinear manner, processing visual in formation much faster than previous generations. Younger viewers processed television in a nonsequential and nonlinear manner, and they were not disoriented by brief, disjointed images. From this insight came the distinct style of MTV.

Pittman’s business savvy was also notable. MTV was the first basic cable network to become profitable. The record companies paid for the programming (the videos) just as they gave radio stations their records. MTV’s programming content was virtually free.

This combination of business acumen and programming astuteness led to Pittman’s being named CEO of the MTV networks in 1983. In this capacity, he oversaw the redesign and relaunch of Nickelodeon, the creation of VH1 and Nick at Nite, the expansion of MTV into global markets (Europe, Australia, and Japan), and the company’s 1984 initial public offering on the stock market.

In 1987 Pittman left MTV after an unsuccessful attempt to buy out the network, cofounding Quantum Media with MCA. Quantum Media produced The Morton Downey Jr. Show, a television talk show, and the innovative police documentary The Street. Quantum Media was sold to Time Warner in 1989, and Pittman became an executive assistant to Steve Ross. In 1990 he was named CEO of Time Warner Enterprises and took over the additional responsibilities of being chief executive of Six Flags amusement parks, majority-owned by Time Warner. As he did at radio stations and cable networks, he revitalized Six Flags and made the company extremely profitable. When Time Warner sold Six Flags in 1995, Pittman decided to take his payoff from the sale and look for new challenges. He joined Century 21 at the urging of his close friend and investor Henry Silverman and joined the board of directors of America Online.

In 1996 Steve Case, the CEO of America Online, hired Pittman to operate a company that was struggling with outsized growth and expenses. As he had with radio stations, television programs, and amusement parks, Pittman used his marketing acumen and operational expertise to turn around AOL, as he led a spectacular growth spurt in subscriber and advertising revenue. When Case engineered the largest merger in U.S. business history with Time Warner to create the world’s largest media company, Pittman became co-chief operating office along with Richard Parsons under CEO Gerald Levin. When the AOL Time Warner board forced Levin to retire, it named Parsons chief executive office to replace Levin, and Pittman chief operating officer of the entire company. However, the dot.com bubble burst, which partially led to AOL Time Warner stock plummeting at the same time that America Online’s growth was slowing. Pittman agreed to take on the additional duties of being CEO of AOL in an attempt to help the struggling unit regain its early glory. However, he resigned in exhaustion in July 2002.