Video Age International June/July 2016

12 Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame that Davis’s division did not need much money to operate, his budget would regularly be the first to be cut. This reporter remembers a personal anecdote: Davis’s boothswere always on the main corridor of whatever trade show he participated at, and inevitably he’d be smoking outside his booths from the early mornings with a copy of one of VideoAge ’s market dailies in hand. The biggest challenge for me was trying to avoid Davis in the morning, before his time was taken up by meetings. This was because as soon he’d see me from a distance (while I was trying to hide), he’d signal to come to his booth, where he’d open pages of VideoAge Daily with paragraphs highlighted in yellowmarker. Davis never complained about his own coverage, but in his usual frank and direct way, he’d start a diatribe on why we wrote negative comments, which, in his view, only papers like The New York Times were allowed to use. My stock answer was that VideoAge was like a mirror and reflected all the opinions that were out there. And if the answer did not satisfy him, I’d suggest he stop reading it and instead look at the photos, which always got a big laugh (with a cough) from him. Davis was known as an avid smoker (he eventually quit after a bout with several cancers, but his “devotion” to tobacco was legendary). Once, during a fire alarm, he barricaded himself in his Black Tower office in Universal City in order to finish his cigarette. After Matsushita took over MCA and banned all smoking inside the building, Davis would hide in the Tower’s garage in order to smoke: he wasn’t alone, but in the company of some Japanese executives. Born inLondon, Davisworked in a bank after serving in the Royal Navy’s Air Force, where he was conscripted in 1948. In 1953, he was sent by the bank to its Toronto branch, which he left after a few years. In order to find a job, soon after he quit the bank post, he left for Chicago. He quickly returned to Toronto to join manufacturer Procter & Gamble Canada in 1956, when at 26 years old, he supervised television sponsorships by all company brands. He later moved to Brand Management and worked on introducing Crest toothpaste to consumers. In 1960, Davis moved on to a position as media director in the Toronto office of the U.S. advertising agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R), where he established a TV department at the same time that Canada’s first private TV network, CTV, was created. Later, he moved to Account Management as head of Client Services, and syndicated some of the sponsored TV shows that Y&R owned. In 1977, he joined MCA, a company he loved. This reporter remembers how proud Davis was of the fact that the MCA commissary was the first studio to offer edamame: We would sit at a table just across that of a retired Lew Wasserman (who would have lunch by himself), and after a respectful bow to the former boss, we’d sit to munch on piles of edamame. ( By Dom Serafini ) WORKS DESCRIPTIVE VIDEO WORKS www.descriptivevideoworks.com 1 866 818 3897 AN INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL MEDIA COMPANY We are proud to have described over 11,000 shows and 800 films Opening the entertainment experience to the blind and partially sighted through Audio Description June/July 2016 V I D E O A G E (Continued from Page 10) L.A. Screenings 1995: Davis, Peter G. Hughes, Ron Suter and CTV’s Arthur Weinthal, Bev Oda (who became Canada’s cabinet minister) and Bruce Nelson Colin Davis at the L.A. Screenings 2015