Fox Stations Tech Chief Arbuckle Dies At 61

Earl Arbuckle, senior VP of engineering at Fox Television Stations, died Aug. 29 of a heart attack. He was 61.

Arbuckle joined Fox in November 1997. Named senior vice president of engineering for the Fox Television Stations in May 2010, he oversaw engineering and operations at the 27 Fox owned-and-operated television stations. He was responsible for implementing the transition to digital broadcasting and HDTV at all the stations.

Jack Abernethy, CEO of Fox Television Stations, commented in a statement: “Earl contributed greatly to Fox, especially in the last few years as he led an extraordinary reengineering of the entire Fox Television Station group. But more importantly, he was a prince of a man, a gentleman, kind and steady, loved and respected. We will miss him very much.”

Arbuckle’s interest in broadcasting was present at an early age. While getting his BS in engineering from the University of California, Irvine class of 1972), he built student radio station KUCI in 1969 from the microphone to the antenna, after preparing a successful FCC license application.

Following a three-year stint in the U.S. Navy, Arbuckle joined Tribune’s WPIX New York as assistant chief engineer in 1978.

In 1994, he became engineering manager for Tribune’s TV group, a post he held until 1996 when he was named VP of engineering at News Corp.’s ASkyB, a joint DBS venture with MCI that was later sold to Echostar.