Elton Rule
Elton Rule
U.S. Media Executive
Elton (Hoerl) Rule. Born in Stockton, California, June 13, 1916. Graduated from Sacramento College, Sacramento, California, 1938. Married: Betty Louise Bender; children: Cindy Rule Dunne, Christie, James. Served in the U.S. Army Infantry, 1941–45. Worked at KROY, Sacramento, 1938–41; radio sales account executive, 1946–52; assistant sales manager, KECA-TV (now KABC-TV), 1952; general sales manager, 1953–60; general manager, 1960–61; vice president and general manager, 1961–68; president, California Broadcasters Association, 1966–67; president, ABC- TV, 1968–70; group vice president, ABC, 1969–72; president, ABC division, 1970–72; director, ABC, 1970–84; president, chief executive officer, and member of executive committee, ABC, 1972–83; vice chair, ABC, 1983–84; president, chair, investment funds with I. Martin Pompadur; co-chair, National Center of Film and Video Preservation. Member: advisory board, Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma, Lenox Hill Hospital, 1973–84; board of visitors, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, 1980–84. Recipient: Purple Heart; Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster; International Radio and TV Society Gold Medal Award, 1975; Academy of TV Arts and Sciences Governor’s Award, 1981. Died in Beverly Hills, California, May 5, 1990.
Elton Rule.
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Bio
Elton Rule took the ABC TV network from a struggling operation in 1968 to top of the television network world a decade later. Under Rule’s leadership, ABC-TV expanded its number of affiliates from 146 to 214 stations, and revenues increased from $600 million to $2.7 billion. The “alphabet network” began turning a profit in 1972; by 1976, it was the highest rated network in prime time; a year later Rule was presiding over a television empire that was collecting more money for advertising time than any media corporation in the world.
The key to this extraordinary success was Rule’s ability to find top programming. During the 1970s, Rule helped introduce such innovations as the made-for-television movie, the miniseries, and Monday Night Football. One of his first moves as network president was to sign the Hollywood producer Aaron Spelling, who through the 1970s added a string of top-ten hits to ABC’s line-up, including Mod Squad, Family, Starsky and Hutch, Love Boat, and Charlie’s Angels. Rule pioneered the presentation of made-fortelevision movies as a regular part of network schedules, billing them as ABC’s Movie of the Week, and producing such early hits as Brian’s Song and That Certain Summer. In 1974, Rule approved the miniseries QB VII. Three years later, a week of Roots, from Alex Haley’s best-selling book, set ratings records, earned Rule wide acclaim, and generated for ABC vast sums of advertising dollars.
During the 1970s, Rule made ABC the leading sports network, centered on Monday Night Football and the Olympics. Rule must also be credited with making the ABC news division the industry leader. He moved sports producer Roone Arledge over to head a languishing network operation, approved hiring reporters from major newspapers, and expanded the locus of the network’s foreign news bureaus. By the mid-1980s, ABC News was the leading broadcast journalism operation in the United States.
When Rule retired in January 1984, he was properly hailed as a corporate savior. Through the remainder of the 1980s, he bought and sold television stations, becoming a multimillionaire. He is remembered, and heralded, for creating a television network empire, an economic, political, social, and cultural force second to none in the history of television.