Robert Chandler's Bio

In Memoriam

Robert Chandler has prospered as a journalist, television news executive and producer, publicist and consultant for 45 years. His career highlights include twenty-two years at CBS News, 13 of them as a vice-president, the last five as senior vice-president.

60 MINUTES rose into television's Top 10 programs and became Number One during the four years Chandler was in charge of the show (1977-1981.) Don Hewitt, the executive producer, and correspondents Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Harry Reasoner and Ed Bradley all reported to Chandler who approved all story proposals and final-edited all stories prior to broadcast. Chandler also brought Andy Rooney to 60 MINUTES. In all, he was responsible for budgets in excess of $40-million and some 300 people.

As director of Information Services at CBS News (1963-1965), Chandler reported to Richard S. Salant and Fred W. Friendly, successive presidents of CBS News. In 1966, Chandler executive-produced The National Drivers Test. From 1967-1972, he was the director of the CBS News Election Unit and executive in charge of all coverage of the 1976 Presidential campaign. Included was the 'live' coverage of the national political conventions, the Presidential Debates and the Carter Inauguration.

It was Chandler who negotiated the partnership between the New York Times and CBS News creating the New York Times-CBS News Poll (1976). Prior to early retirement from CBS as Senior Vice-President, Administration (1985), Chandler was responsible for personnel and policy matters, legal liaison, business affairs, archives, and marketing services.

Chandler served as managing editor of 1986, the NBC News weekly magazine series starring Roger Mudd and Connie Chung, and, 1989-1990, was creator-executive producer of Learning in America: Schools That Work, a two-hour documentary for MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. He was creative consultant, 1992-1993, for Spies, 26 half-hour documentaries broadcast on A&E Network. Since 1993, Chandler has been a consultant for such multinationals as IBM and Fujisankei International Communications.

Chandler's career began as a reporter-editor-critic for Variety, covering television in its infancy. As director of television publicity at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1961-1963), he created the TV publicity department at the time MGM entered television production.