Les Garland

Les Garland is an American media executive.

Throughout his celebrated career, the path Les Garland blazed has been fueled by his love of music and entertainment. As co-founder of groundbreaking networks including MTV, VH1, The Box Television Network, and College Television Networks, his is the DJ voice on a worldwide Number one song. Garland’s decades of accomplishments are expansive and diverse as acknowledged at the September 27, 2014 38th Annual Mid-America Emmy® Awards where he received the prestigious Governor’s Award for his lifetime achievements. This rare EMMY award was presented to Garland by longtime friend and Eagles band member Glenn Frey. He has worn many hats including Radio Personality; Radio Program Director; Record Company Executive; Event Producer; Music Talent Manager; Executive Producer; Brand Marketer; Public Speaker and Entertainment Industry Consultant. An award-winning talent who has been featured in magazines, newspapers, on radio, television, and the net, Garland has resided at the height of pop culture for his entire career.

Prior to his years in cable television , Garland cut his chops as Program Director of historic major market radio stations including K-100 Los Angeles, CKLW Detroit, WRKO Boston, and KFRC San Francisco, all during contemporary music’s prime. Discovered by radio legends Bill Drake and Paul Drew, Garland’s storied radio career led to a spot on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “Music Industry Heavy 100.”

Garland says the “audience has always come first.” At KFRC, San Francisco he achieved his greatest accomplishments in radio, taking the station to new heights as the top rated station in northern California. Legendary KFRC was named Radio Station of the Year no less than four times while Garland was being voted Program Director of the Year by his peers. Channeling Orson Welles, Garland created a KFRC promotional spot that has since become a part of radio history. It also netted Garland a Clio. The award winning promo, titled “Close Encounters”, stunned listeners by announcing that the station would go silent in order to communicate with extraterrestrials.

On the heels of his distinguished stint in radio, Garland was hand-picked by iconic label founder Ahmet Ertegun and label chief, Doug Morris to leap from radio to records, managing West Coast operations for the most venerable brand in music, Atlantic Records. Atlantic was home to many of the most popular artists in history, including Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Abba, Aretha Franklin, Foreigner, The Spinners, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and AC/DC.

One of Garland’s most recognizable achievements was his wholesale influence on 1980s culture as member of MTV: Music Television and VH1. MTV, the world’s first 24-hour music channel, is home of the anthemic I Want My MTV. Hired by co-founder,(with John Lack) Robert Pittman, Less served as MTV Networks Senior Vice President, Garland was a producer of the first six MTV Video Music Awards. He was on the team that globalized the MTV brand with distribution into Europe, Asia and Australia. During his time at MTV his humorous and witty nature shined through when he was asked to be the DJ voice embedded in the classic hit "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship. This impromptu stunt immortalized his voice as the things DJ dreams are made of, while Garland calls it his first number one song.

Following their MTV years Garland and Pittman co-founded Quantum Media, launching popular television shows The Morton Downey Jr. Show, Streets (TV’s first reality cop show), and the legendary Marvin Hagler / Sugar Ray Leonard title fight. Garland went on to produce Pepsi’s multi-format radio jingle campaign, enlisting a superstar line-up including Naughty by Nature, Luscious Jackson, Notorious B.I.G., PM Dawn, Digable Planets and The Rembrandts. After Quantum Media, he returned to music and television orchestrating the national roll-out of The Box Television Network, the world’s first interactive music channel. As Senior Executive Vice President, Garland played an essential role in the channel’s domestic and global rollout, handling programming, promotion, sales and marketing, while simultaneously growing the channel to more than 50 million homes worldwide. After The Box, Garland moved on to found digital music platform sputnik7.com with music icon Chris Blackwell. While Garland served as the company’s President, the channel won multiple awards, including a Webby for digital innovation. Garland also participated in the launch and roll-out of The College Television Network (CTN) that was ultimately acquired by MTV Networks and later converted to mtvU.

Today, Garland continues to lead mass media entertainment at the helm of his company AfterPlay Entertainment, a boutique, multi-disciplinary consulting practice that, in part, matches world famous talent with world-class brands. Internationally, AfterPlay has contributed to the development of music initiatives for Bacardi International while domestically, Garland secured The Eagles to play for a sell-out crowd at the official opening of the John Q. Hammons Arena at Missouri State University. He orchestrated a unique relationship between superstar artist Pitbull and Zumba Fitness (Zumba shares full body workouts with more than 10-million people each week in more than 100 countries). Garland executive produced and was the voice of the 2011 Tom Petty Tour radio, television, and media commercials. Garland also serves as an advisor to BIGSTAR Movies, a subscription SVOD and AVOD platform committed to presenting unique movies, both of which are available on-demand (through RoKu, iOs, Android and most devices) to a global audience.

Despite his success in other arenas, music and screens (television, etc.) remains Garland’s passion. A notable new project includes his work on the Virgin-launched EDM cross-platform, culture series Travelectric, hosted by Shiva, the creator and face of the show that will feature the world’s top DJs. In the broadcast realm, he continues his work with Charles Koppelman while teaming up with famed entrepreneur Michael Cohl developing two new properties. This fall, Garland is be participating in the international launch of a new television programming service, called The QYou, co-developed with former Senior Vice President, Executive Producer of FOX News Corporation, Scott Ehrlich and longtime friend, award-winning music video producer, and former President of Lionsgate Digital, Curt Marvis.

Having held several executive management positions in the music industry, radio, music television and new media, Garland is frequently sought out for speaking engagements. He has appeared at college symposia including engagements at Brown University alongside Hunter S. Thompson and Walter Cronkite, and has been a featured speaker at the Billboard International Music Confab, the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Australian Radio Broadcasters, the New Music Seminar, the International Music & Media Conference, and Austin’s famed South-by-Southwest Conference. He also keynoted the ESPN Sports Radio Convention and was guest lecturer at the Electronic Arts worldwide marketing conference. In 2012, Garland received the first of three invitations to appear in a unique internet lecture on the subject of "Sex, Race, and Rock in the USA" in a class taught by Professor Rebecca Sheehan at Australia’s prestigious University of Sydney. In her words, Professor Sheehan stated, “The student feedback repeatedly listed your lecture as their favorite of the course and it would be great to have you back for a third appearance in 2014”.

Despite his accomplishments, Garland still finds time for a passion that nearly equals his love of music: the game of golf. Garland carries a 7.0 handicap, scoring four amateur career hole-in-ones and served as former champion at LaGorce Country Club on Miami Beach. Additionally, for the pure fun of it, Garland briefly caddied on the PGA Pro circuit for PGA Pro Tommy Armour III. An active member of the community, he helped oversee the renovation of Miami Beach’s two public golf courses, the Miami Beach Golf Club and Normandy Shores, appointed by the City of Miami Beach, where he currently resides.

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