David Allen Graves

David A. Graves passed away July 30, 2024 at his home in Weston, MA, at the age of 76. He was born in Endicott, NY, the son of Janice and Harold Graves, both now deceased, who soon moved to Connecticut and later Brockton, MA. He graduated from Danbury High School in 1966, going on to study at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. While there he majored in Drama, taught himself Basic computer programming, and before graduating in 1970 became extremely interested in the college’s multi-award-winning, student-run, 1000-watt AM radio station, WDCR. Elected by his peers to the station’s directorate in 1969, he took the position of Program Director, overseeing a volunteer staff that included at least 35 individuals, many of whom went on to successful professional broadcast careers.

His own development followed a similar path, and soon had him producing shows and related features for Boston’s legendary WBZ Radio. By 1980, as Director of Advertising and Marketing, and later consulting from Group-W headquarters, he was instrumental in helping to launch a hugely successful series of TV ads featuring new morning personality Dave Maynard. The initial spot had a reluctant Maynard riding shotgun on Joe Green’s traffic helicopter high over the city, and subsequent, humorous “ad”-ventures would eventually catapult WBZ to #1 in the ratings – most impressive for a longstanding AM radio station, competing in the midst of an industry-wide FM takeover.

Westinghouse Broadcasting soon moved him to another legacy AM giant, KDKA in Pittsburgh where he was Program Director. From there, it was onto Program Manager of Chicago’s WIND Radio, charged with converting a Top-40 station to a risky new News/Talk format – taking it from very low ratings to #4 in the city, soon followed by a promotion to General Manager. The market sizes and positions kept growing, as his next Group-W challenges included a move to Los Angeles as Vice President and General Manager of KFWB News Radio 98, and from there back to headquarters in New York City, as Senior VP of Strategic Planning for Westinghouse Broadcasting. This included developing new TV programming for Group-W Productions, where one of his most successful innovative series was the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

Breaking new media ground became his new passion, as he launched and became CEO of AdValue Media Technologies, a start-up tech company, which connected TV stations to ad agencies for the buying and selling of commercials. London based Reuters, took notice and soon after acquiring Dave’s operation in the early 90’s, Reuters brought him on board personally as President of Global Media, where his responsibilities included the wire services, on line news, television and pictures. Under his leadership, the company operated 167 news bureaus throughout the world, producing news feeds in 17 languages across six global regions. David lead the 150-year old news agency’s transition to online news publishing, creating the model for online news presentation and in the process making Reuters the leading supplier of news to the online world as well as traditional media (clients included NBC and CBS).

Back in the US, fast-growing internet web phenomenon Yahoo! was the next to call, recruiting him in 2000 as Senior Vice President of Media, supervising Yahoo!’s innovative News, Finance and Sports properties, and launching an expansion into Travel, Education, Health and Get Local.

Retiring from that, he launched another individual consulting enterprise as CEO of Reinventing Media, with clients that included Google, The New York Times, Nasdaq and many others, and was an early innovator in video streaming technology. This included founding Permission TV in 2004, one of the first companies offering technology to create on-line video players that facilitate channels, playlists and other features. The concept licensed toolkits to enable in-house developers seeking to build their own interactive video sites – and earn money from their content via ad-supported, pay-per-view and subscription-based services. Early competitors in the field included Cambridge’s noteworthy Brightcove.

By 2015, he decided to undertake some creative content-creation himself, founding Trailside Studios, LLC, and collaborating with an old college broadcasting cohort to write and produce a short theatrical film. “Mail.Man” is a story about the lost art and critical impact of a personally written letter in today’s otherwise instant digital communication world of emails, texts, tweets and posts. Incorporating elements of both humor and emotion, along with a scene-stealing Rottweiler, it went on to wide distribution at over 45 international film festivals, often winning Audience People’s Choice awards, and at one point was featured on Amazon Prime.

It was during his tenure at Group-W headquarters when Robert F.X. Sillerman’s empire was selling some key broadcast assets to Westinghouse, that David met the seller’s representative, Peggy Jean Koenig. The resulting negotiation went well on multiple fronts, and the two were married November 3, 1990. The couple soon had two daughters, Katherine (LA and NYC) and Hannah Graves (Newton, MA), with the family moving to Weston, MA in 1995. While particularly proud of others whom he mentored in the course of a long and distinguished career in broadcasting, David himself always insisted his greatest accomplishment, reward and personal joy was best evidenced as the proud father of his two amazing daughters. Peggy and David divorced in 2013, but have remained good friends, and all three were supporting David through an 8-month struggle with Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer – a valiant battle that ended July 30, 2024. He had been pre-deceased some years earlier by a sister, Nancy Graves, living in Japan.

A Memorial Service will be held at Temple Beth Elohim, 10 Bethel Road, Wellesley, MA, on Wednesday, August 21, at 10am. The service will be livestreamed at this link: https://tbewellesley.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pcO-trzgjHdHaqcQkmZI1OBmNYsrfqsEv#/registration

The family is collaborating with Dartmouth to create a meaningful tribute, and donations can be made out to the David A Graves’70 Memorial Fund and either sent to: Dartmouth College, Gift Recording Office, 6066 Development Office, Hanover, NH 03755 or on-line via credit card at dartgo.org/davidgravesmemorial or by calling 603-646-0098. (Those wishing to support the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s on-going pancreatic research can direct donations to: Dr. James Cleary’s Research Fund, P.O. Box 849168, Boston, MA 02884-9168.)