Ward Quaal, Broadcasting Pioneer, Passes at 91

Pioneering broadcaster and former WGN Chicago president Ward Quaal died September 24, 2010, in a Chicago nursing home. He was 91.

According to news reports, the cause was age-related issues.

A formidable presence in the Chicago market for several decades, Quall helped to build WGN into a nationally recognized brand, and his influence ultimately extended far beyond his Windy City roots.

A native of Michigan, Quaal was born in 1919, and got his first radio experience as a high school student in the town of Ishpeming, when he worked as an announcer, writer and salesman for WBEO (now WDMJ) in nearby Marquette, Michigan. In 1937 he enrolled at the University of Michigan and worked for WJR in Detroit.

The day after his graduation in 1941, Quaal joined WGN, where he worked on special events and was on-air as a sports announcing. He also broadcast the 1941 bombing of Peral Harbor, which led to the America’s involvement in World War II.

During war he served in the U.S. Navy for three years, and returned to WGN in December 1945 as special assistant to the general manager. Among his achievements was helping WGN expand into television, which occurred in April of 1948 with the launch of WGN-TV. At the same time, Quaal was taking law courses at Northwestern University at night.

From 1949 to 1952, Quaal took a leave of absence from WGN to become executive director of the Clear Channel Broadcasting Service, an industry group based in Washington.

In 1952 he moved to Crosley Broadcasting, but returned to WGN, where he became vice president and general manager in 1956 and president of WGN Continental (now Tribune Broadcasting Co.) in 1961.

He later served as chairman of the board for Broadcast Pioneers (now the Broadcasters Foundation) and as president of Crosley. The foundation’s Pioneer Award is named after him.

In addition to running stations, Quaal was deeply involved in public service. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson asked Quaal to study the operations of the U.S. Information Agency in Japan and develop a plan to improve the agency’s operations there.

His many honors included being named a member of the inaugural inductees to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Management Hall of Fame in April 2003, and among the first 50 Giants of Broadcasting selected the same year by the Library of American Broadcasting.

Quaal was also the author of books and articles for the broadcasting industry, including the well regarded 1976 book Broadcast Management: Radio and Television.

The Broadcasters Foundation in 2008 renamed its annual Pioneer Award the Ward L. Quaal Broadcast Pioneer Award.

Survivors include his wife, two children, one grandchild and three great-grandchildren.

On October 12, 2004, Ward Quaal had the distinction of being interviewed for the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television. Durong the three-hour interview, conducted in Chicago by the director of the Archive, Karen Herman, Quaal described his lifelong association with Chicago television station WGN, where he began as an announcer and worked his way up to station manager and later president of the WGN Continental Broadcasting Company.

Quaal went on to discuss the programming on WGN through the years, as well as the evolution of television technology. He outlined WGN’s conversion to a “superstation” and the station’s subsequent financial success.

He also spoke about working closely with government agencies in matters regarding the broadcast industry (allocation of stations, the Fairness Doctrine, etc.), as well as the government’s role in regulating the industry.

Quaal passionately advocated the need for local stations to provide their communities with relevant programming. He also talked about writing the textbook Broadcast Management, and its usefulness to aspiring station managers.

The entire interview is available online here.