RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF.: Barry Ackerley, owner of the Seattle SuperSonics and former chairman and CEO of The Ackerley Group, died Monday morning. He was 76.
The Group owned 18 TV stations in California, Colorado, Oregon, New York and Alaska, including KGET-TV, the Bakersfield, Calif. NBC affiliate, and KJEO-TV, now KGPE-TV, the CBS station in Fresno; KCOY-TV, the CBS in Santa Barbara and others. The Ackerley Group was sold in 2001 to Clear Channel Communications, which sold its TV stations to Newport Television in 2008.
Aclerley also owned the Seattle SuperSonics basketball team for 18 years. His media career started in advertising at “Better Homes & Garden” magazine in New York. He later worked in outdoor advertising for many years before going into broadcasting in the early 1970s. He bought Obie Media in Seattle in 1975 and renamed it The Ackerley Group.
