Annenberg, Walter Hubert

Basic Biographical Information

Born in 1908 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA) to a Jewish family, Walter H. Annenberg would become a pioneer in media and publishing, diplomat, and philanthropist. After taking over the family publishing business - Triangle Publications - in the early 1940s, Annenberg sought ways to expand the company just as television was becoming the next major communication medium. He created Seventeen Magazine for teenage girls in 1944 before establishing TV Guide, a weekly magazine about television programming, which became the most read and circulated magazine in the country by the 1960s. Over the years, Annenberg's company delved into radio and television broadcasting, and he became an early pioneer in and supporter of public television. President Richard Nixon appointed Annenberg as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Great Britain, for which he served from 1969 to 1974. Annenberg sold Triangle Publications to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation