Jamie Bennett obit

Jamie Bennett Dies: Longtime CBS & Disney TV Executive Who Developed ‘Live! With Regis & Kathie Lee’ Was 78

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Jamie Bennett, a longtime TV executive at CBS and Disney who developed Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee and other popular syndicated shows, has died. He was 78.

His family told Deadline that Bennett died July 6 of cancer.

He spent 13 years in executive posts at CBS including as program director of WBBM-TV in Chicago and eslewhere, eventually serving as Vice President and General Manager of KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. After that he moved to the Walt Disney Company as Senior VP of Buena Vista Television Productions, where he developed such popular syndie fare as Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, Siskel and Ebert and Win, Lose or Draw.

In a 2008 “In Their Own Words” column for TV Week, Bennett discussed his relationship with Regis Philbin and how ABC’s venerable Live! morning format came to be.

“Our sales staff at Buena Vista was looking for a single-issue talk show,” he wrote, “because at that time, Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue defined talk shows, and the former multi-topic shows, Merv Griffin, Dinah Shore and Mike Douglas, had all disappeared. The sales staff was saying, ‘“’We’re going to have a hard time selling this. Our clients are all asking for single-issue talk, they don’t want multi-issue talk. They don’t want happy talk.’ We said, ‘Look at Regis’ record with A.M. Los Angeles and A.M. New York.’ And the most important thing is that [the reigning single-issue shows] weren’t live. Regis was live. He was talking about what happened on TV last night.

“Nobody had ever taken out a live syndicated program before. We called it Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee to stress that,” he continued. “We did have two talents on the show. Calling it The Regis Philbin Show with Kathie Lee Gifford would have been a challenge. The rest is 20 years of history. It works because it’s essential television.”

After his TV exec career, Bennett was hired as President and CEO of ACI, a Los Angeles-based TV and theatrical film distribution company. Upon the sale of ACI to Pearson Television (now Fremantle Limited), Bennett moved with his family to London to run its worldwide production. 

While there, he worked on new business challenges internationally and eventually moved back to Los Angeles, where Bennett put his energy, expertise and spirit into volunteer board work and the nurturing of business startups with Pasadena Angels, an “angel round” investment group that provided early-stage financing.

Born James Stark Bennett II on June 1, 1947, he got his start while attending the University of California at Berkeley’s serving as program director of its radio station KALX and producing its annual Jazz Festival. Upon graduation, Bennett received the the Kenneth Priestly Award, which recognizes a graduating senior for his/her outstanding student leadership and contributions to student welfare. He went on to earn an MBA from Harvard Business School.

After his career, Bennett was named Chief Operating Officer at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arc) in downtown Los Angeles, where he indulged his love of academia and architecture. He played a critical role in establishing SCI-arc’s permanent place in the Arts District.

Bennett and wife Carolyn retired to Ojai, about 80 miles northwest of downtown L.A. He was asked to join the Board of Directors for the Ojai Music Festival and later became its CEO and President for several years. After leaving the music fest, Bennett served on Ojai’s Planning Commission.

He also served on the boards of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, National Environmental Trust, Phoenix Pictures, St. Nicholas Theater in Chicago, Marlborough School, UC Berkeley Alumni Association and the Television Advisory Board of the Annenberg School at USC.

Along with his wife, Carolyn Doepke Bennett, he is survived by their children Katherine (Philip Ineno), Lucy and Brooks (Christina); grandchildren Maggie and Kenji; a sister, Judith Wilson (David); niece Alison Akers and her daughter, Hyacinth.