Barry Diller

American businessman

Barry Diller was born on February 2nd, 1942, in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Beverly Hills. His first steps up the corporate ladder began at the William Morris Agency, where he worked in the mailroom.Landing a job in ABC's programming department in 1966, Diller impressed the higher-ups enough to be promoted to vice-president in charge of feature films and program development in 1969. Under his direction, ABC's Movie of the Week premiered in the fall of 1969, and would become the most popular movie series on television, and raise ABC's status.Instead of filling the show with the traditional made-for-television movies, Diller commissioned social problem films -- docudramas, which targeted young, urban audiences -- their stories taken from current headlines and controversial issues. Thanks to Diller's innovation, by 1972, TV movies had become ubiquitous on all the networks.hollywood honchoIn 1974, Charles Bluhdorn, the head of the sprawling Gulf & Western Industries, hired Diller to run Paramount Pictures, which Gulf & Western bought in 1966. During Diller's decade-long tenure, Paramount produced such hit films as Saturday Night Fever (1978) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and TV shows as Taxi and Cheers. But in 1984, Diller had a dispute with Gulf & Western's new head, Martin S. Davis, and quit.Diller wasn't out of work for long. Snapped up by Twentieth Century Fox, Diller was put in charge of developing the studio's new network after Australian newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch bought Fox in 1984.Starting out with limited programming, FOX Television was running a full schedule, competing with the "big three" networks: NBC, ABC and CBS. Once again, Diller's savvy instincts played a part in the success. He developed low-cost "reality" fare (back when "reality TV" still dealt with the real world) such as Cops and America's Most Wanted; these hit shows were balanced with alternative and youth-oriented programming such as In Living Color, Married... With Children and The Simpsons.Surprising the industry again, Diller left FOX in April 1992, to buy and run QVC, Inc. In 1995, he took over USA Interactive -- now InterActiveCorp (IAC) -- which he has expanded to include not only home shopping, but a variety of successful companies that deal with interactive business on the Internet: Expedia, Inc., Hotels.com, and Ticketmaster. With these hot online properties, Diller has poised himself as the leader of an online travel juggernaut.As well, from May 2002 until March 2003 (when he resigned), Diller served as Chairman and CEO of Vivendi Universal Entertainment.busy, busy, busyThese days, Diller serves as a director of Expedia, Inc. and Hotels.com, in addition to The Washington Post Company and The Coca-Cola Company. He sits on the Board of the Museum of Television and Radio, the New York Public Library, Conservation International, and 13/WNET.Diller is also a member of the Board of Councilors for the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, the New York University Board of Trustees, the Tisch School of the Arts Dean's Council, and the Executive Board for the Medical Sciences of UCLA.Based in Manhattan, Diller is married to designer Diane von Furstenberg, and has made Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans -- one of fewer than a dozen whose chief source of income is the Internet.Source: askmen.com