James Charles Dowdle is credited with the significant growth and diversification of the Tribune Company’s broadcast efforts in programming and station acquisitions. On his promotion to executive vice president of Tribune Media Operations, Dowdle was responsible for the Tribune Company’s newspaper publishing, broadcasting, and entertainment businesses, including the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise. 

In 1962, Dowdle joined KWTV in Oklahoma City as national sales manager. Two years later, he joined Hubbard Broadcasting’s KSTP in Minneapolis as national sales manager and, in 1973, was promoted to vice president and general manager of Hubbard’s independent WTOG in Tampa, Florida. He remained in Tampa until 1981, when he rejoined the Tribune Company as president and chief executive officer of the newly formed Tribune Broadcasting Company. In that capacity, Dowdle was responsible for the company’s owned-and-operated television and radio stations and its subsidiary Tribune Entertainment Company, which was founded in 1982. Within four years, he was elected to the Tribune board of directors. 

Visionary in his approach to media and dedicated to the concept of growth, from the outset Dowdle worked at moving Tribune to new and ever more profitable levels. The Chicago Cubs were purchased by Tribune in the summer of 1981. Approximately two years later, in combination with Viacom Enterprises, he formed TV-NET, a prime-time program service aimed at monthly distribution of major theatrical films not seen on network television. But, most important, under Dowdle’s direction, by early 1985 Tribune had increased its ownership of independent stations from three to five with top-ranked independents in Chicago, Denver, and New Orleans and second-ranked independents in New York and Atlanta. Then, on May 16, 1985, the Tribune announced plans to buy Los Angeles-based KTLA-TV for a reported $510 million (reputedly the highest price ever paid for a single television station). KTLA was targeted at revenues of approximately $100 million in 1985 and would expand Tribune’s reach to 19.6 percent of all U.S. television households. 

The KTLA acquisition, reported BusinessWeek on June 13, 1985, was “crucial to Dowdle’s ambitious plan to use the combined viewership of his stations as a captive customer base for his own programming.” To that end, he pursued various joint ventures in program production in various formats, signed the controversial Geraldo Rivera in 1987 for a daily daytime talk show that culminated in a successful 11-year run, and in April 1990 signed a 10-year contract with Ted Turner’s Cable News Network (CNN). Under terms of the arrangement, Tribune stations would become CNN affiliates, and the two companies would coproduce documentaries, miniseries, and news specials. 

In 1991, Dowdle was directing the operations of six television stations, four radio stations, and a variety of subsidiaries that produced and distributed programming for both media. Earlier in the year, the Tribune had also launched ChicagoLand Television (CLTV) under the banner of Tribune Regional Programming, Inc., a service dedicated to Chicago-area news, sports, and information utilizing the resources of the Chicago Tribune, WGN radio, WGN television, and the Chicago Cubs. Within two years, Tribune Regional Programming combined with Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), to provide CLTV to TCI’s 300,000 cable customers in the Chicago metropolitan area 24 hours a day.

For his efforts, Dowdle was named a corporate vice president of the parent Tribune Company in July 1991. Then, in 1994, at the age of 60, he was appointed executive vice president of Tribune Media Operations. Overseeing publishing, broadcasting, and entertainment, Dowdle was responsible for approximately 90 percent of more than $2 billion in company revenues. In this position, he worked to direct expansion and media crossover strategies, improve operational efficiencies, and increase new services for the advertisers who wanted to use print and broadcast simultaneously. He also continued to direct the 24-hour local CLTV news service. 

On November 2, 1993, PR Newswire carried Dowdle’’s announcement that the Tribune Broadcasting Company would join with Warner Brothers to create the WB, a new prime-time television network slated to begin operations in the fall of 1994. Tribune television stations in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, and New Orleans were initially slotted as affiliates, and the network, emphasizing programming for 18- to 49-year-olds in prime-time evening slots, would instantly cover 85 percent of American households. Then, in 1996, Tribune added six new television stations to its stable for a total of 16 when it agreed to buy Renaissance Communications Corporation for $1.3 billion. Including a station that it managed in Washington, D.C., Tribune was now broadcasting in nine of the country’s top 11 markets. 

Dowdle stepped down from his position as executive vice president of the Tribune Company effective December 31, 1999, and was succeeded by Tribune Broadcasting’s president, Dennis FitzSimons.