Remembering Joe Clayton, Broadcast Communications Leader
Joe Clayton, pioneer and leader of the broadcast communications industry, died after a brief illness. He was 69 years old.
Clayton was president and CEO of Dish Network from 2011 to 2015, when he retired. He served as CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio from 2001 to 2004 and as chairman from 2004 to 2008. He got his start in 1973 with RCA, where he was a marketing associate. He worked his way through telecom and television companies, holding leadership positions at RCA and Frontier Corp. before Dish and Sirius.
“Joe Clayton was one of the people that made your life richer by knowing him. His bandwidth in marketing, business and life was incomparable,” says Bill Cron, chairman of the board of American Marketing Association. “He will be remembered and missed by everyone who knew him. Great marketer. Great man.”
Clayton is credited with launching revolutionary products, such as Hopper DVR for Dish, which allowed users to skip ads. He was inducted into the Consumer Technology Hall of Fame in 2008, according to Variety.
Read more about Clayton’s legacy, check out Variety’s take on his life.
