Gerald M. Levin, the former Time Warner CEO who helped oversee its disastrous merger with AOL, died Wednesday in Long Beach, California. He was 84 years old.
His death was confirmed New York times By his grandson, Jake Maya Arlo. Levine was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but no details about his death have been shared.
Once described as one of the world’s most powerful media executives, Levin, along with Steve Case, orchestrated the devastating merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2000. At the time, Time Warner was the world’s largest media company while AOL was a behemoth. itself. right. But the deal was among the worst in history, and Levin resigned from the company in 2002.
“He saw the merger with AOL as taking Time Warner digital by injection,” Richard Parsons, who succeeded Levin at Time Warner, told The New York Times. The New York Times. “What AOL brought to the party was instant access and efficiency in terms of how to access the online world.”
Levin was born in Pennsylvania and attended Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Most of his career was with Time Inc., which became Time Warner. He joined the company in 1972 and made his mark three years later by convincing officials to broadcast a pay-TV channel called Home Box Office to the nation.
“It was Jerry Levin who revolutionized television when he was the first to use satellite broadcasting for programming,” Barry Diller said in a statement. The New York Times“He had a lot of resistance within Time, but he persevered and cable television was born.”
He later played a key role in the company’s merger with Warner Communications. As CEO, he oversaw the acquisition of Turner Broadcasting System in 1996.
After Robin Williams’ death in 2014, Levine revealed to Deadline that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding about Parkinson’s,” he told Mike Fleming Jr. “The connection between Parkinson’s and depression is probably going to have a big impact now that people will start to see, without stigma and without mischaracterization, that this is a 24/7 kind of disease that It affects your functioning. There is a whole psychological layer underneath the physical effects of Parkinson’s that is usually not discussed or disclosed. I think this is a huge contribution to consciousness, and will be remembered for his human spirit and joy. Some of the words used are quite ironic, it is a progressive and degenerative disease.
A year later, Levine founded the Levine Center for Transformative Health for Parkinson’s Disease. The mission was to remove stigma and work on the emotional well-being of Parkinson’s patients.
“I stepped down from Time Warner in 2002,” Levine told Deadline. “This is my first entrepreneurial startup. I joined Time Inc to start HBO, but it was done under the corporate umbrella as with the other entrepreneurship plays we’ve done. At 76 years old, with no entrepreneurial experience Now, I’m involved in a startup. I’ve done interviews about business, about filmmaking, about cable TV, about streaming, and I always get mixed reactions. That (Deadline article from 2014) was the first time I had a response. The unifying act is that I’ve done something important, spoken out about how I deal internally with Parkinson’s disease, and used Robin’s legacy as a way to show people how they shouldn’t feel embarrassed. I’ve realized that this is the only platform I have. I’m a citizen with a previous title, but I have a platform, “And it’s Parkinson’s disease, and aging. Yes, I have Parkinson’s disease, and yes, I have tremors, and my voice isn’t what it used to be, and it’s hard for me to walk. But I’m determined to help people. If you help others, you help yourself.”
Levin has four children. He was preceded in death by his son Jonathan, a public high school teacher who was murdered by a former student in 1997.
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