Daniel Burke, former ABC executive, dies
This undated image provided by the Walt Disney Co., shows Daniel Burke. Burke a media industry veteran who helped create Capital Cities/ABC Inc. before it was sold to The Walt Disney Co., has died of complications from diabetes. Credit: AP
The Associated Press
Daniel Burke, a media industry veteran who helped create Capital Cities/ABC Inc. before it was sold to The Walt Disney Co., has died of complications from diabetes. He was 82.
Burke, along with Tom Murphy, built Capital Cities from a television station in Albany into a company with newspapers, magazines and TV and radio operations.
With Warren Buffett's backing, Capital Cities Communications bought ABC for $3.5 billion in 1986, in what was then the largest non-oil-company merger in corporate history.
After helping merge the two companies, Burke was elevated to chief executive, where he remained until he retired in February 1994 on his 65th birthday.
Disney bought Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion in 1996.
Burke's son, Steve Burke, a former president of ABC, is now the chief executive of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal.
Disney chief executive Bob Iger said in a statement that "Dan had a significant impact on me and all those he touched," calling him a "gifted executive and natural teacher, and a man with a strong sense of right and wrong."
Two years before he retired, Burke bought an Eastern League minor league baseball franchise, the Sea Dogs of Portland, Maine, with the aim of providing family entertainment in the state where he spent his summers.
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