NFF Gold Medal Recipients
Biography
Murphy was the first broadcaster/publisher to be honored with The National Football Foundation's Gold Medal.
Mr. Murphy was the chairman and chief executive officer of Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. until 1994, which he helped found. He has spent 40+ years in broadcasting, an industry he has enhanced with distinction and a strong sense of service.
It was over 40 years ago that Murphy began his broadcasting career, taking over the management of a debt-ridden Albany, NY television station with a weak UHF signal.
It took three years, and several infusions of additional capital from such investors as broadcasting legend Lowell Thomas, but Murphy finally turned the station into a profit maker.
That station was the beginning, the seed that grew into Capital Cities/ABC; a remarkable coalition of broadcasting, newspaper, magazine and book publishing, cable and international television interests.
Mr. Murphy served in the Navy in World War II for three years, earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell in 1945 and worked briefly as an industrial oil salesman for The Texas Company. Today that company is known as Texaco and, as fate would have it, Murphy sits on its Board of Directors.
In 1947, he went back to school and earned an MBA degree from The Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. He spent a couple of years with the Kenyon & Eckhardt advertising agency, then was a product and merchandising manager for Lever Brothers.
By 1985, Murphy, and his friend, now retired Capital Cities president Dan Burke, had boosted the company to $1 billion in revenues, which included broadcasting and publishing holdings. In 1986, he merged with the then troubled American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. and the company that stands so strongly today came into being. He is credited along with Burke for increasing both profitability and efficiency of the company.
He is a member of board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway, General Housewares Corp., Texaco, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and IBM Corporation and a Life Trustee and Honorary Vice Chair of New York University.
