Lawrence K. Grossman, Head of PBS and Then NBC News, Dies at 86
In an email on Friday, Mr. Brokaw wrote that NBC News had needed “an aggressive seasoned hand” with experience in journalism
and production to “go against Roone Arledge,” the president of ABC News, “and the CBS veteran team.”
He added that Mr. Grossman had “failed to appreciate the change represented by the arrival of Jack Welch and G. E.
Jack knew the department needed fresh ideas, but Larry failed to provide them.”
Lawrence Kugelmass Grossman was born in Brooklyn on June 21, 1931.
By RICHARD SANDOMIRMARCH 23, 2018
Lawrence K. Grossman, who as president of PBS doubled the length of “the MacNeil/Lehrer Report,” its signature news program, then headed NBC News,
where he dealt unhappily with budget austerity after it came under General Electric’s ownership, died on Friday at his home in Westport, Conn.
His granddaughter Rebecca Grossman-Cohen said he had Parkinson’s disease and oral cancer.
But after G. E.’s acquisition of RCA, NBC’s parent company, in 1986, Mr. Grossman fell out of favor with his new bosses — Jack Welch, G. E.’s chairman,
and Robert C. Wright, NBC’s president, as well as with Tom Brokaw, the anchor of “NBC Nightly News.”
To Mr. Grossman, corporate ownership of news divisions (Loews controlled CBS
and Capital Cities had bought ABC) had increased the pressure to make a profit.