James T. Aubrey, Jr.

James Thomas Aubrey, Jr. (December 14, 1918–September 3, 1994) was an American television and film executive. President of the CBS Television Network during the early 1960s, he put some of television's most successful series, including Gilligan's Island and The Beverly Hillbillies, on the air and consequently CBS dominated American television: during the 1963-1964 season, CBS had fourteen of the fifteen top-rated prime-time series. The New York Times Magazine in 1964 called him "a master of programming whose divinations led to successes that are breathtaking."

Abrasive personality

He was a controlling man and a workaholic, working twelve-hour days, six days a week. He was endlessly reading scripts, watching episodes, and dictating scenes be reshot or change made in the furniture on a set. In Only You, Dick Daring!, his scathing account of the five and a half months he spent trying to make a show with CBS for the 1963-1964 television season, Merle Miller talks of how Aubrey would simply walk out of meetings without offering any substantive comments, good or bad. Miller was assured by other CBS executives that meant things were fine, but Miller learned later of efforts to force him out. (A pilot for the show, know as Calhoun and County Agent, to star Jackie Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, was shot and put on the fall schedule, but never aired.) Miller quoted an independent producer

Related Topics:
1963 - 1964 - Merle Miller - Jackie Cooper - Barbara Stanwyck

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:Aubrey's the most important man in television, in the history of television, maybe in the history of entertainment. He out-Mayers Louis B. Mayer ten times over.

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Murray Kempton said Aubrey "was the fourth president of CBS as Caligula was the fourth of the twelve Caesars." Such treachery led the producer John Houseman to dub him "The Smiling Cobra." In December 1962, CBS was announced it was spending $250,000 an episode on his hour-long drama on American history, The Great Adventure, for the next season. However on July 25, 1963, CBS announced Houseman had resigned. The producer told The New York Times "The kind of show they want is not what I wanted to produce" but attributed his departure to a simple difference of opinion, the Times reporter stating Houseman "expressed no crticism of C.B.S."

Related Topics:
Murray Kempton - Caligula - John Houseman - 1962 - July 25 - 1963 - The New York Times

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Aubrey's outsize reputation–beaming smile, dapper dress, endless womanizing–inspired characters in Keefe Brasselle's The CanniBalS, Harold Pinter's The Inheritors, and Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine; Aubrey is network executive Robin Stone in Susann's novel. The New York Times Magazine would describe him as "6-foot 2-inch with an incandescent smile" with "unrevealing polar blue eyes."

Related Topics:
Keefe Brasselle - Harold Pinter - Jacqueline Susann

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Aubrey's success went to his head and he became even more arrogant. He was abusive to the network's affiliates, advertisers, and talent. He rescheduled the series of Paley's friend Jack Benny without consulting the star, who objected to his new lead-in for the 1963-1964 season, Petticoat Junction. (His lead-in had been Red Skelton.) Then in the summer of 1963, Aubrey told Benny, who had been with CBS since 1948, his show would not be renewed at the end of the forthcoming season, Aubrey having deciding Benny was past it and no longer relevant. Benny took his show to NBC, where it was soon cancelled, proving Aubrey's point if not his tactics. "Lucille Ball couldn't say his name without calling him a S.O.B.," Stanton said.

Related Topics:
Jack Benny - 1963 - 1964 - Petticoat Junction - Red Skelton - 1948 - Lucille Ball

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Aubrey, who on May 9, 1963 warned the network's affiliates the high cost of rights for professional sports could price them off television, nevertheless in January 1964 agreed to pay $28.2 million to air the games of the National Football League for two years, seventeen games each season. "We know how much these games mean to the viewing audience, our affiliated stations, and the nation's advertisers," Aubrey told The New York Times. In April, he agreed to extend the deal for another year for a total of $31.8 million.

Related Topics:
May 9 - 1963 - 1964 - National Football League - The New York Times

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In the spring of 1964, The New York Times Magazine declared CBS "for the 10th year in a row . . . was the undisputed champion of the television networks." The Times quoted an analyst who said CBS was "almost comparable to what General Motors did in autos or what General Electric in electrical equipment."

Related Topics:
1964 - The New York Times - General Motors - General Electric

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Aubrey fought constantly with officials of CBS News, especially Fred W. Friendly, who felt Aubrey was insufficiently concerned with public affairs. In 1964, CBS Reports, a news program, was blamed in the press for the sharp drop off in the ratings of The Beverly Hillbillies–the show had been number one in its first two seasons, but dropped to eighteenth when CBS Reports became its lead-in for its third season. CBS responded by moving CBS Reports to Mondays.

Related Topics:
CBS News - Fred W. Friendly - 1964 - CBS Reports - The Beverly Hillbillies

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