Michael J. Ziegler, CEO of WSKG during two decades of dramatic changes, passed away on Monday, Aug. 19, surrounded by his loved ones. He was 85 years old.
Ziegler served as the CEO of WSKG from 1980 until 1999. He once said that his career in broadcasting was fated from the day he was born, his family gathered around the radio while his mother was in labor.
“I’ve been told the first words I heard were Jack Benny’s.”
As a kid in York, Pennsylvania, Ziegler hung around the local radio stations, doing odd jobs and scoring the occasional on-air appearance. While attending Penn State, he worked as a cameraman on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, and after graduation, began working in public broadcasting.
In 1980, he left his position as chief operations officer of Harrisburg’s WITF to take on leadership of WSKG. He saw the station through a difficult period financially, and helped broker the 1989 purchase of WSKG’s current studios at the former Willow Point School in Vestal, the fourth school to serve as the station’s home.
In 1992, Ziegler made an appearance on the hit PBS kids game show, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, in an episode that revolved around the theft of the new WSKG studios.
In 1998, when tornadoes ripped through the region and knocked Binghamton’s WIVT-TV off the air, Ziegler opened WSKG’s doors to the station, helping them maintain news reporting capacity as they dealt with the damage.
Ziegler served as chairman of the NYS Public Broadcasters Association for many years. His foresight regarding public broadcasting’s shift to digital was crucial in preparing WSKG to make that transition smoothly. Ziegler was proud that during his tenure at WSKG, Ithaca had the highest rate of NPR listeners per capita in the U.S.
“We are grateful to Mike Ziegler for his visionary leadership, which helped create a strong foundation for WSKG,” said Natasha R. Thompson, WSKG president and CEO.