OR

source: syndeoinstitute.org
30 Sep, 1917
22 Jan, 1994
Unknown
American
Proprietor
76
Irving B. Kahn was an American media proprietor who founded the TelePrompTer Corporation. He was born in 1917 in Newark, New Jersey to a family of Russian immigrants. He grew up in an environment which nurtured his creative and scientific curiosity. He graduated from the University of Alabama.
He started his career as a public relations agent for Twentieth Century Fox where he pioneered radio advertising in movies. He then went on to serve in the US Army during World War II before returning to his old job. He quickly rose through the ranks and became Vice President of Fox’s new radio and television subsidiary, TCF Television Productions Inc.
He founded the TelePrompTer Corporation with some of his colleagues from Fox Radio. Together, they invented the teleprompter to help a soap opera star who could not remember his lines. The teleprompter displayed script lines and cues for public speakers and actors and quickly became a staple in the entertainment industry which is used even to this day.
After Irving B. Kahn witnessed how successful the teleprompter was, he saw further opportunities in the growing cable industry and started to explore how this device could be used for broadcasting boxing matches and auto races.
TelePrompTer sold its business in the 1960s and invested in cable and satellite broadcast services. Kahn believed that cable would be responsible for 85 percent of all television by the end of the 1970s. This ambitious prediction led him to secure and wire several major franchises which laid the groundwork for the future of cable television.
He was imprisoned for 20 months after he tried to bribe Pennsylvania city council members to award his company a local cable franchise. He admitted to making the payments but maintained that he was being extorted by the officials.
Following his release from prison, Kahn started a new cable television venture when he purchased a 55-franchise cable system in New Jersey and later moved to West Palm Beach and Mamaroneck, New York. He finally sold his company to the New York Times in 1981. Kahn passed away in 1994 at the age of 76.
Irving B. Kahn
Irving B. Kahn
Male
Unknown
Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Entrepreneur: Irving B. Kahn had a big impact on the people around him. He enjoyed energetic conversations filled with a good dose of intelligence.
He served as a lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
He was the nephew of famous composer Irving Berlin.
In the 1960s, he predicted that cable would provide 85 percent of all television reception by the end of the 1970s.
Kahn started his career as a public relations agent for Twentieth Century-Fox.
Kahn was imprisoned for 20 months for trying to bribe members of the Pennsylvania city council.
He was the founder of TelePrompTer Corporation