Shopping network pioneer Paxson dies at 79

Lowell “Bud” Paxson, a longtime radio and television entrepreneur who pioneered the shop-by-television industry in the early 1980s, died Friday at his home near Lakeside. He was 79.

Paxson’s friends and colleagues say he was a man of integrity and a powerful negotiator whose Christian faith guided him in both his business and personal life.

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith called Paxson a “tenacious advocate for over-the-air radio and television.”

Paxson and his wife, Marla, built their home on Flathead Lake in 2006. They were drawn to the Lakeside area by friends who extolled the beauty of the Flathead Valley.

They have been generous philanthropists in the Flathead, donating $1 million to Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s new emergency services campaign in 2013.

“A gift like this has inspired others to give,” Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation President Tagen Vine said about the Paxsons’ generosity, which stretched to many other area charitable organizations.

Born in Rochester, N.Y., Paxson started early in the entertainment business, starring in a local radio show called “Kiddie-Go-Round” at age 14. By his early 20s he acquired his first radio station, WACK in New York; that acquisition would set the tone for a lifetime of accomplishments in the broadcast industry.

Known as the creator of the home-shopping industry, Paxson got the idea for this kind of on-air marketing in 1977 when a client of his Clearwater, Florida, radio station couldn’t pay his bill. Paxson accepted 118 avocado green can openers instead of money.

Needing to make payroll the next day, Paxson announced on the radio he would sell the $30 can openers for $10 apiece to anyone who could come to the station and pay cash. Paxson was able to pay his staff, and it sparked the concept for the Home Shopping Club, which he and business partner Roy Speer launched in 1982.

Later renamed the Home Shopping Network, the popular network was grossing $1 billion annually by 1985. He left the home Shopping Network in 1991 to form Paxson Communications Corp. and began acquiring more radio, television and media properties.

His corporation gave him a platform to launch a federal campaign to ensure diversity in broadcast television, as a “David” figure to the “Goliaths” of the big three broadcast networks — ABC, NBC and CBS — and cable television.

Paxson was the driving force behind the landmark “must carry” language in the 1992 Cable Act that required cable operators to carry local broadcasters in their market. He also pushed for the 1996 Communications Act that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and transformed television in the modern age to ensure local community voices were not lost.

“This changed the television landscape as we know it,” said Vicki Iseman, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist who helped Paxson get the pivotal federal legislation passed.

Iseman said Paxson was competitive by nature and had a “fierceness in his loyalty to people.

“He was tough as nails,” she recalled. “I believed in him. It was to his business benefit to have me fight for him, but he made me want to fight for him.”

He was a true visionary, Iseman said, recalling a conversation more than two decades ago when he predicted how cellphones would revolutionize people’s lives.

TV personality and zookeeper Jack Hanna of Bigfork credited Paxson for helping him in his career.

“He was the one that believed in me ... and PAX-TV was the first one to give me that break to take our show into reruns,” Hanna said in a phone interview from the Columbus Zoo in Ohio where he is director emeritus.

Hanna called his good friend a genius when it came to developing broadcast programming.

“Somehow he looked at my reruns and a little old animal show” and saw the family show value, Hanna said. “I think he saw that I’m a believer in the animal world ... he literally helped make who this ‘Jack Hanna’ character is as far as giving me the ability to bring the animal world to more and more people.”

Paxson was known for integrity as well as his toughness when it came to business dealings, Hanna noted.

“He was a powerful negotiator in an honest way,” he said.

Hanna also recalled how important Paxson’s Christian faith was.

“Bud’s life started every morning with prayer and faith ... he lived by it, and that’s why he succeeded in business,” he said.

Paxson is survived by his wife, four children, a daughter-in-law and six grandchildren.

Services will be held at 4 p.m. Jan. 22 at Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com. Reporter Samuel Wilson contributed to this story.