Len Stevens, cofounder of WPHL-TV, Hall of Fame broadcaster, and former nightclub owner, has died at 94
His Channel 17 aired Phillies, 76ers, and Big Five college basketball games, the Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club, and other memorable TV shows in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
Len Stevens, 94, formerly of Philadelphia, cofounder of WPHL-TV Channel 17, radio and TV announcer, member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame, transmitter tower innovator, advertising and programming whiz, former owner of the Library and Branch nightclubs, avid boater, and veteran, died Wednesday, Sept. 3, of kidney failure at Jefferson Cherry Hill Hospital.
Born in Philadelphia, reared in West Oak Lane, and a 1948 graduate of Central High School, Mr. Stevens was a natural entrepreneur. He won an audition to be a TV announcer with Dick Clark on WFIL-TV in the 1950s, persuaded The Tonight Show and NBC to air Alpo dog food ads in the 1960s, co-owned and managed the popular Library singles club on City Avenue in the 1970s and ’80s, and later turned the nascent sale of “vertical real estate” on towers and rooftops into big business.
He and partner Aaron Katz established the Philadelphia Broadcasting Co. in 1964 and launched WPHL-TV on Sept. 17, 1965. At first, their ultrahigh frequency station, known now as PHL17, challenged the dominant very high frequency networks on a shoestring budget. But, thanks largely to Mr. Stevens’ advertising contacts and programming ideas, Channel 17 went on to air Phillies, 76ers, and Big Five college basketball games, the popular Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club, Ultraman, and other memorable shows in the late 1960s and early ’70s.
“We imposed ourselves. We forced ourselves on the market,” Mr. Stevens said in 2013 at a Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia event. “I like to think … my tombstone will say something to the effect that, ‘He built stuff that’s still around.’” Vince Giannini, then the general manager of WPHL, said in 2013: “Len, you are the father of the station.”
In 1967, the Philadelphia Broadcasting Co. merged with Wilmington-based AVC Corp. to form U.S. Communications, and Mr. Stevens, as executive vice president for operations, added TV stations in San Francisco, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. He sold the TV stations in 1972 but retained control of several companies that owned and managed more than 150 transmitter towers and rooftop antennas around the country.
“Many in the contemporary tower business credit Len with creating big business out of small tower leasing,” officials at the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia said in a tribute.
He was active with the International Radio and Television Society, Philadelphia Advertising Club, Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, and other industry groups. He served on a TV development subcommittee for the Federal Communications Commission in the 1960s and was vice chairman of the All-Channel Television Society in 1968.
He began as a disc jockey for his family’s WHAT radio station after high school and changed his name from Sternberg to Stevens. Later, he managed radio stations WHAT and WWDB for his aunt and uncle, and owned WPBR-FM radio in Palm Beach, Fla., until 1994.
A lifetime foodie who embraced the Philadelphia social scene in the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Stevens owned and operated the popular Library dance club in Bala Cynwyd, the Branch nightclub in Cherry Hill, Harry’s American Bar on Chestnut Street, the Farm restaurant in Cherry Hill, and the Alexis restaurant in Old City. Ever the ad man, he told the Daily News in 1980 that his bars and restaurants were more than nightspots for drinks and dinners. “We’re not a disco,” he said. “We’re a meeting place.”
He served two years in the Army during the Korean War and afterward headed the radio and TV department at Weightman advertising for nearly a decade. Many of his contacts and ad clients at Weightman followed him to WPHL.
He never really retired and was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame in 2013. “He prided himself on keeping a low profile,” his family said in a tribute. “He was never one to explain to people or flaunt his extensive resume.”
Leonard Bernard Sternberg was born Dec. 4, 1930, in Philadelphia. He lived later in Gladwyne, Villanova, Medford Lakes, and Delray Beach, Fla.
He married Esther Stiefel, and they had a daughter, Cheryl. After a divorce, he married Mona Pressman, and they had a son, Rob, and a daughter, Julie. He married Alexis Riffel after a divorce and then Nancy Schumacher.
Mr. Stevens captained several sport fishing yachts, all named Wandra, and he and Schumacher spent many summers at the Seaview Harbor Marina in Longport and ocean cruising along the Jersey Shore. They collected art and traveled together, and he enjoyed classical music and high school reunions.
His son said: “Most people who met him later in his life had no idea that he founded one of Philadelphia’s famous independent television stations or that he owned the city’s most famous disco of the disco era.”
A boating friend said in an online tribute: “He was a special person, and we were so very fortunate to have known him.”
In addition to his wife and children, Mr. Stevens is survived by two grandchildren and other relatives. A sister and a brother died earlier.
Private services were held earlier.