Marvin L. Shapiro, broadcast media and private equity executive, dies at 97

Marvin L. Shapiro, a longtime broadcast media industry executive who successfully transitioned into a second career as a private equity chieftain, passed away on Jan. 18 at the age of 97.

Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Shapiro served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II as a radio operator-gunner on B25’s in the 57th Bomb Wing, flying 50 missions over North Africa and Italy and later chalking up additional missions over “The Hump” to India, China and Burma. After the war, he attended Syracuse University and received B.S. degree in speech.

Shapiro began his media career in Erie as a sportscaster and the host of special events broadcasting. He shifted his focus from the microphone to the managerial suites at Westinghouse Broadcasting Co. (Group W), rising to the positions of executive vice president, chief operating officer and president-station group. Shapiro gained national attention in 1969 when he ordered the Group W stations to cease running cigarette advertisements two years before they were banned from the air by the federal government.

Shapiro, who was a longtime Stamford resident, held leadership roles in the nonprofit organizations serving the media industry, first as a director of the Radio Bureau of Advertising and later as chairman and a director of the Television Bureau of Advertising.

Shapiro left Group W in 1983 to join the private equity company Veronis Suhler & Stevenson as a managing director, where he coordinated multiple media industry transactions, including the sale of local television stations and the formation of formation of the Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo Group and the Buffalo, New York-based Queen City Broadcasting.

He is survived by his wife, Gertrude, his children as well as two granddaughters and four great-grandchildren. He is also survived by a brother Shia of Cleveland.