Daniel B Burke

The Burke family, has been powerful in American business and mass communications. His older brother, James, ran Johnson & Johnson, and two of his sons have held top posts at NBC Universal, Disney, TBS, Comcast and the Weather Channel. Mr. Burke worked for most of his career alongside Thomas S. Murphy, whom he served as a trusted lieutenant and partner. Mr. Murphy had been a Harvard Business School classmate of Mr. Burke’s brother, James. Daniel Burke and Mr. Murphy were a formidable pair. Together they built Capital Cities through a series of acquisitions and orchestrated the merger with ABC in 1986. Daniel Barnett Burke was born in Albany on Feb. 4, 1929, a son of James and Mary Barnett Burke. His father was an insurance salesman. He grew up in Slingerlands, N.Y., outside Albany, and Dorset, Vt. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1950, served as an infantry lieutenant in the Korean War in 1951 and 1952, and received an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1955. After leaving Harvard, he worked for the Jell-O division of General Foods. In 1961, Mr. Murphy hired him to manage an Albany television station owned by Capital Cities. Mr. Burke became chief executive of Capital Cities/ABC in 1990, when Mr. Murphy retired from that position but stayed on as chairman. Mr. Burke retired in 1994. In 1995 Mr. Murphy pulled off one more mega-deal: negotiating the sale of the company to the Walt Disney Company for $19 billion. In retirement, Mr. Burke lived in Maine and ran a minor league baseball team, the Portland Sea Dogs. He was a director of Conrail, the federally operated freight railroad, from 1981 to 1986. He was also a director of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, and he was a chairman emeritus of New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Two of his three sons also made careers in media. His oldest son, Stephen, held top posts at Comcast and Disney and in January was named chief executive of NBC Universal. His son Bill was president of TBS and the Weather Channel. He is also survived by his wife of 54 years, Harriet; another son, Frank; a daughter, Sally McNamara; his brother, James; a sister, Phyllis B. Davis; and 14 grandchildren.