Alfred Masini
| Al Masini | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 5, 1930 Jersey City, New Jersey, United States |
| Died | November 29, 2010 (aged 80) Honolulu, Hawaii, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | television producer |
| Spouse(s) | Maria Masini (1958-1985) Noreen Donovan (1989–1993) April Masini (1995–2000) Charlyn Honda Masini (2001–2010) |
| Website | almasini |
Alfred Michael "Al" Masini (January 5, 1930 – November 29, 2010) was an American television producer.
Al Masini was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Raised by his widowed mother, Masini started working after school at age 10 in a Tootsie Roll factory after his father died to help support the family. He graduated from Xavier High School in 1948 and from Fordham University in 1952, where he was a three-sport star. After serving as an Air Force officer during the Korean War, he found a job in the CBS News department. From there he moved to CBS Network Station Relations and then into television sales.
By the late 1950s, Masini was a spot sales representative for the Edward Petry Company (now Petry Media), an advertising company. There he developed sophisticated sales systems and procedures and established the first programming department. Another innovation was individual spot pricing, by which each individual spot was priced according to the actual size of the audience, a method that remains the industry standard.
In December 1968, Masini founded TeleRep in New York City to sell advertisements for client television stations. TeleRep grew to represent hundreds of stations and eventually entered the TV programming business. The firm is now part of CoxReps, the nation's leading television station sales representative.
In 1976 Masini and TeleRep organized Operation Prime Time, a consortium of American independent television stations to develop high-quality prime time programming for local, independent stations. Working with Richard H. Frank, who was at that time general manager of KCOP-TV Los Angeles and later served as president of Walt Disney Television (1985-1994) and chairman of Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications (1994-1995), Shelly Cooper, general manager of WGN-TV Chicago, and representatives of KTVU, WPIX and KSTW, Masini organized a plan by which individual stations, acting collectively, would commission their own big-budget programs, thereby circumventing the major networks. Under this arrangement, the bulk of commercial time would be sold on a local basis, reversing the pattern followed by the major networks. Operation Prime Time was launched in May 1977, with Testimony of Two Men, a six-hour series based on Taylor Caldwell’s best-selling novel, debuting on 93 stations. Another early program, David Frost’s conversations with Richard Nixon, drew 45 million viewers. Among the early executives to sign on were Frank Price of Universal Television, who offered the Caldwell novel, and Archa Knowlton, media-services director for General Foods.
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