Robert Dennis Wood (April 17, 1925 – May 20, 1986) was an American television executive from

Boise, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ar ...

who was president of

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from 1969 to 1976. He, along with his vice president

Fred Silverman Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as '' ...

, initiated the network's "

rural purge The "rural purge" of American television networks (in particular CBS) was a series of cancellations in the early 1970s of still-popular rural-themed shows with demographically skewed audiences, the majority of which occurred at the end of the ...

" in the early 1970s, which influenced much of American television at the time. The purge canceled long-running and popular rural-oriented shows like '' Green Acres'' and ''

The Beverly Hillbillies ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family f ...

'' in order to introduce more urban-oriented shows targeted at the youth market, such as ''

All in the Family ''All in the Family'' is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS for nine seasons, from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. Afterwards, it was continued with the spin-off series ''Archie Bunker's Place'', which picked up where ''All in ...

'', which reshaped American television by depicting issues previously considered unsuitable for a U.S. network television comedy.Former CBS President Robert D. Wood, 61, Dies
''Los Angeles Times''. May 22, 1986. He died in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Robert 1925 births 1986 deaths CBS executives University of Southern California alumni People from Boise, Idaho Presidents of CBS, Inc.