Frank Stanton took CBS from radio into television, vigorously persuading advertisers to try the new medium. He built the CBS Television Network into the largest ad medium of his time.
Before moving into senior management at CBS, he was director of audience research, sales promotion, and advertising. Stanton also was an early director of the Ad Council and received its public-service award in 1969. He was the founding chairman of the world-renowned Center for Advanced Study in the behavioral sciences in Stanford, Calif.
Stanton¿s many awards attest to his impact on the advertising industry. Along with David Ogilvy, Henry Luce and Henry Ford II, Stanton received the first annual award from the Art Directors Club in 1954 "for the vision given to the presentation of CBS advertising." He also has been honored with awards from the American Marketing Association, the Business Enterprise Trust and the National Association of Broadcasters.
After leaving CBS, he was appointed by Presidents Johnson and Nixon to three terms as chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information. Presidents Johnson and Nixon also appointed him chairman of the American Red Cross. He is the first non-Harvard alumnus in this century to have been elected an overseer of Harvard. Stanton led the industry in persuading Congress to lift the equal time provision of the Communications Act, thereby allowing the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. In 1961 he received the Peabody Award for this significant effort.