Lew Klein

Lew Klein was an American television executive.

Klein began his career in the early 1950s at Philadelphia’s WFIL-TV. He is credited with helping to launch the career of Dick Clark in his role as executive producer of American Bandstand, the teen dance show that was a local Philadelphia phenomenon before going national in 1957.

Klein was a leading figure among the handful of TV station executives that formed what would become the National Association of Television Program Executives in 1964.

From 1984 to 1993, Klein was president of Gateway Communications, which owned four television stations in Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia.

He also worked as an adjunct professor at Temple University for 65 years. In 2017, the school renamed its school of media and communication as the Lew Klein College of Media and Communication.

Klein died June 12, 2019, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was 91.