Daniel B. Burke Dies at 82; Helped Engineer Capital Cities-ABC Deal
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Daniel B. Burke, who helped engineer the acquisition of the American Broadcasting Company by Capital Cities, one of the boldest corporate takeovers of the 1980s, and went on to become chief executive of the merged company, died on Wednesday at his home in Rye, N.Y. He was 82.The cause was complications from Type 1 diabetes, the family said in a statement.
Mr. Burke worked for most of his career alongside Thomas S. Murphy, whom he served as a trusted lieutenant and partner. Mr. Murphy had been a Harvard Business School classmate of Mr. Burke’s older brother, James E. Burke, who later became the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson.
Daniel Burke and Mr. Murphy were a formidable pair. Together they built Capital Cities through a series of acquisitions and orchestrated the merger with ABC in 1986. While Mr. Murphy was the outside man, happy to be the public face of the company, Mr. Burke thrived as the inside man, the cost-conscious manager much less eager for publicity.
“He was really a partner,” said Mr. Murphy, who described their relationship as a collaboration between equals, even though Mr. Murphy was always a notch higher on the organizational diagram. “It was not a one or a two,” he said of their working relationship.
“As far as running the business and, particularly when we took over ABC, the details of putting that ship in order so we maximized our financial opportunities, a great deal of that was him,” Mr. Murphy said.
The acquisition of ABC, a much bigger company than Capital Cities, for $3.5 billion stunned the business world. It was the first time one of the nation’s three major broadcast networks had changed ownership, and at the time it was the biggest corporate acquisition outside the oil industry.
Despite the surprise, Wall Street reacted positively, not least because Capital Cities brought in Warren E. Buffett to help finance the purchase.
Mr. Burke became president and chief operating officer of the merged company, while Mr. Murphy was chairman and chief executive. Capital Cities was a highly profitable company that owned television and radio stations, newspapers and trade magazines. ABC was the third-largest network, but still a vast operation that ran television and radio stations and produced programming.
ABC insiders were skeptical about the acquisition at first, but Mr. Murphy and Mr. Burke turned the new company into a well-managed and profitable media conglomerate. Known as cost-cutters, they sought to replace a celebrity-oriented culture at ABC with a less profligate one that emphasized management teamwork.
Mr. Burke could be a tough task master, Mr. Murphy said, but he also had a deft way with people.
Daniel Barnett Burke was born in Albany on Feb. 4, 1929, a son of James and Mary Barnett Burke. His father was an insurance salesman. He grew up in Slingerlands, N.Y., outside Albany, and Dorset, Vt. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1950, served as an infantry lieutenant in the Korean War in 1951 and 1952, and received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1955.
After leaving Harvard, he worked for the Jell-O division of General Foods. In 1961, Mr. Murphy hired him to manage an Albany television station owned by Capital Cities. Mr. Burke became chief executive of Capital Cities/ABC in 1990, when Mr. Murphy retired from that position but stayed on as chairman. Mr. Burke retired in 1994.
In 1995 Mr. Murphy pulled off one more mega-deal: negotiating the sale of the company to Disney for $19 billion. In retirement, Mr. Burke lived in Maine and ran a minor league baseball team, the Portland Sea Dogs.
He was a director of Conrail, the federally operated freight railroad, from 1981 to 1986. He was also a director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and he was a chairman emeritus of New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
Two of his three sons also made careers in media. His oldest son, Stephen, held top posts at Comcast and Disney and in January 2011 was named chief executive of NBC Universal. His son Bill was president of TBS and the Weather Channel.
He is also survived by his wife of 54 years, Harriet; another son, Frank; a daughter, Sally McNamara; a brother, James; a sister, Phyllis B. Davis; and 14 grandchildren.
