Alex Wallau (born January 11, 1945) is a former president of the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or multichannel video programming distributo ...

. Wallau began his career with ABC in 1976, when he joined the network's Sports division under

Roone Arledge Roone Pinckney Arledge Jr. (July 8, 1931 – December 5, 2002) was an American sports and news broadcasting executive who was president of ABC Sports from 1968 until 1986 and ABC News from 1977 until 1998, and a key part of the company's rise t ...

, then head of

ABC Sports ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

. Wallau went on to become a two-time

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

Award-winning producer and director of ABC's sports coverage. He worked primarily on ABC's boxing coverage with announcer

Howard Cosell Howard is an English language, English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (disambiguation), Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defe ...

. In 1986, after Cosell's retirement, Wallau became ABC's

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

analyst. He was honored by the

Boxing Writers Association of America The Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) was originally formed in 1926 as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York. The association's purpose is to promote better working conditions for boxing writers, as well as hold its writers ...

as the top television boxing journalist in his first year. Wallau moved into management under

Bob Iger Robert Allen Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as the President of ABC Television between 1994 and 1995 and the President and Ch ...

in 1993 and was named President of ABC in 2000, with oversight of 11 divisions, including Entertainment, News, Sports, Finance & Sales. In 2007, he joined

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's Corporate Strategy, Business Development & Technology Group as Senior Strategic Advisor. In 2017, he moved to the new DTCI division which created new streaming services including Disney+. He retired in 2020. He has served on the Board of Directors of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, the

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and the

Paley Center for Media The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R) and the Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S. Paley, is an American cultural institution in New York City, New York with a branch office in Los Angeles, ...

. In 2006, Wallau was honored by UCLA's

Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center The Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) is a cancer research center at University of California, Los Angeles. History The center was originated by UCLA scientists and volunteers who began working together in the late 1960s.cancer survivor A cancer survivor is a person with cancer of any type who is still living. Whether a person becomes a survivor at the time of diagnosis or after completing treatment, whether people who are actively dying are considered survivors, and whether ...

References

http://articles.latimes.com/1988-04-15/sports/sp-1613_1_alex-wallau Living people American television executives 1945 births Boxing commentators Boxing writers American Broadcasting Company executives Presidents of the American Broadcasting Company ESPN executives {{US-tv-bio-stub