STANTON, FRANK (NICHOLAS)

born , March 20, 1908, Muskegon, Mich., U.S. innovative American radio and television executive who was president of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from 1946 to 1971. Stanton grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and attended Ohio Wesleyan University and Ohio State University. His doctoral dissertation on measuring the reactions of broadcast audiences to radio programming led to a summer job with the network. His subsequent rise in the broadcasting hierarchy was rapid, and by age 38 he was president of CBS. Stanton's career included several decisive actions. In the late 1950s, when scandals had tarnished numerous personalities in televised quiz programs, he discontinued the network's remaining quiz shows. In 1960 Stanton flouted the Federal Communications Commission's equal time regulation to broadcast debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the only presidential candidates he considered significant. A decade later he refused to submit to Congress CBS's preparatory materials for the controversial documentary The Selling of the Pentagon. In 1971 he argued in hearings in Washington, D.C., that broadcasting should enjoy the same freedoms as the press under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Stanton received many honours, including awards in 1960 and 1970 from the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences; he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1986. After retiring from CBS, he served as chairman of the American Red Cross from 1973 to 1979.