lit a candle 14h agoThat line about creative people and suits, I first read it in a media history text at uni in Adelaide, underlined it twice. 97 years, most of it in rooms deciding what the rest of us watched.
Their story
James H. Rosenfield, Sr. was an American television executive who spent two decades at CBS, rising from an account executive in network sales to president of the CBS Television Network and, ultimately, executive vice president of the CBS Broadcast Group. In that top role he oversaw CBS Television Network, CBS…
James H. Rosenfield, Sr. was an American television executive who spent two decades at CBS, rising from an account executive in network sales to president of the CBS Television Network and, ultimately, executive vice president of the CBS Broadcast Group. In that top role he oversaw CBS Television Network, CBS News, CBS Entertainment and CBS Sports during the 1970s and 1980s, a period that produced some of the defining programs of American television.
He was born on July 18, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Roxbury Latin School before graduating from Dartmouth College in 1952, where as a student he hosted his own campus radio show. After a stint in the NBC executive training program and early jobs in advertising at Polaroid Corporation and marketing at Airequipt, Inc., he joined CBS in the mid 1960s as a television account executive and steadily climbed the network's sales and management ranks.
At CBS, Rosenfield became a trusted lieutenant of the network's founder and chairman, William S. Paley, who early in Rosenfield's career put him in charge of the network's sales relationship with Grey Advertising, an assignment that helped propel his rise. By 1980 he had been named president of the CBS Television Network, and he was later promoted to executive vice president of the CBS Broadcast Group, a post that put him at the head of the network's key operating divisions. Although network executives of that era were often dismissed as "the suits," Rosenfield was known for being closely engaged with the creative and journalistic talent whose work he oversaw, including CBS News figures such as Walter Cronkite, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl and Mike Wallace, whom he counted as friends as well as colleagues. His tenure coincided with landmark CBS programming including 60 Minutes, M*A*S*H and All in the Family.
He retired from CBS in 1985 and went on to serve as chairman and chief executive officer of John Blair Communications, Inc., a national sales representative for local television stations. He later founded JHR & Associates, a consulting firm that advised traditional and digital media companies, and remained active for decades afterward as a board member and advisor across the media industry, including as chairman emeritus of the nonprofit Reisenbach Philanthropies, past president of the International Radio and Television Society, past chairman of the Advertising Council, and a board member of Internews International and Salon Media. He was also a lifetime fellow of the International Council of the Television Academy and received an honorary doctorate from St. John's University.
Rosenfield died on September 26, 2026, in New York City, at the age of 97. His death was confirmed by CBS. Tributes from across the television industry recalled him as a rare network executive who was as comfortable with creative talent and journalists as he was with advertisers and affiliates, and as a steady hand who helped guide CBS through one of the most consequential eras in the history of American television.
Biography adapted from News reports and the sources cited on this page; death reported by IMDb.
In their own words
“One of the things that I understood in this business was that there are two types of people who exist side by side: creative people and suits. And I was a suit.”
Recalling his approach as CBS Broadcast Group executive vice president, quoted in Deadline
Photos
1by People Forever
