Richard Wiley did not own a company or retail outlet and did not invent a device or technology. But as chairman of a federal advisory panel, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission played a pivotal role in the development and subsequent adoption of the U.S. digital television (DTV) broadcast standard by championing HDTV, advocating an all-digital system and creating the cooperative Grand Alliance that developed today's digital and high-definition television standards.
Dick Wiley was born in Peoria, Illinois, on July 20, 1934, and grew up in Winnetka, a suburb of Chicago. Wiley got his introduction to TV when his father, Joseph, a manufacturer's agent for Edison electronics products, bought the family a Philco set in the early 1950s.
While in college, Wiley planned to become a history and political science teacher when a professor suggested he take the LSAT and pursue a law career. After passing the test, Wiley got a full scholarship to Northwestern University. After receiving both his B.S. and J.D. from Northwestern, Wiley married, then joined the U.S. Army and served in the Judge Advocate's Corp as an appellate specialist at the Pentagon from 1959-1962. He then earned his LL.M from Georgetown in 1962.
Interested in regulatory law, Wiley got his first job in the private sector at a Chicago firm with a large anti-trust specialty. He practiced successfully for eight years when he traveled to Washington, D.C., to apply for the job as FTC general counsel. That job wasn't open, however, but was told the same position at the FCC would be open a few months later. In October 1970, he got the job. Two years later, then-President Nixon nominated Wiley as an FCC commissioner and, in 1974, he was appointed chairman. Wiley served under three presidents - Nixon, Ford and Carter - during his tenure at the FCC.
As chairman, Wiley believed that competition fostered innovation and worked to open up closed industries. He was instrumental in opening both landline telephone and the nascent cell phone businesses to multiple carriers, allowing Sprint and MCI to compete and the cell phone industry to explode, and helped give birth to the modern satellite and cable TV businesses. Wiley retired as FCC chairman in October 1977.
From the late 1960s through the early 1980s, wireless telephone companies such as Motorola petitioned the FCC to open up more spectrum sliced from local television spectrum. Broadcasters kept their spectrum by claiming they would develop high-definition television. In mid 1987, the FCC asked Wiley to chair the newly-formed Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service (ACATS), which would oversee and adjudicate the varying DTV development efforts.
Known today in Washington circles as the father of the nation's transition to digital TV, Wiley recommended that the changeover to digital transmission employ simulcasting to maintain the current six MHz analog television channel while transitioning the country to a second digital channel. Equally significant, he defined what HDTV would require: at least twice the number of scanning lines of conventional television.
After six years of competitive development and testing, Wiley proposed in May 1993 that the remaining proponents in the race come together in a "Grand Alliance" to develop the final all-digital standard. Wiley also had to cope with complaints and suggestions from Hollywood as well as the computer industry as the standard was being defined. On November 28, 1995, with the technical work on the DTV standards completed, Wiley chaired the final ACATS meeting, and his committee made its final recommendation to the FCC. After jockeying by both the FCC and the Congress, the DTV standard was adopted by the commission on Christmas Eve 1996, more than nine years after Wiley began his work at ACATS.
In 1997, Wiley was awarded an Emmy for his work on HDTV. In 1993, he was named to the Broadcasting & Cable magazine Hall of Fame, and in 1999, he was named one of the top 100 Men of the Century by the magazine. In 1996, he was recognized by EIA with a medal of honor and, in 2002, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the National Association of Broadcasters.
Since 1983, Wiley has been managing partner of Wiley Rein LLP, a Washington, D.C. law firm with nearly 300 lawyers and some 80 communications law professionals. He says he has no plans to retire.