Joe Clayton, Longtime Face of RCA, Later Chief at Sirius, Dish, Dies at 69
Joseph Paul (Joe) Clayton, 69, for many years the industry face and voice of the RCA brand and later CEO at Frontier Communications, Sirius Satellite Radio and Dish Network, died Saturday from complications of pancreatic cancer. CTA, for which Clayton was chairman during the mid-1990s, hailed him Sunday as a direct broadcast satellite “pioneer” for his role in launching RCA Digital Satellite Service receivers with DirecTV in 1994.
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CTA President Gary Shapiro praised Clayton Sunday in a Facebook post as “a larger than life leader who had such passion for his family, his industry, Kentucky, bourbon, and the church.” Clayton “helped make HDTV become a reality, introduced DBS and grew Sirius and Dish,” he said.
Shapiro also hailed Clayton’s “antics,” such as when he used a tank to roll over competitors’ products. We recall one CES years ago witnessing Clayton roaming competitors’ booths on Day 4 with a camera crew long after many had gone home, filming a motivational video for the RCA field sales team. At one stop, Clayton, pointing toward one archrival logo, stared into the lens and promised RCA would “bury these guys.”
Clayton was a 24-year RCA veteran, beginning as a marketing associate in New York in 1973, rising through the product marketing and sales ranks in various cities throughout the U.S. For nearly four years through December 1996, Clayton was executive vice president-marketing and sales, Americas and Asia, at Thomson, which bought the RCA business in the late 1980s.
Sirius hired Clayton in November 2001 to oversee the national launch of its satellite radio service the following year. Clayton said he wanted to model the Sirius rollout after the successful DSS launch and that his top priority upon joining the company would be to make Sirius, then aftermarket-dominant, a more “retailer-friendly” marketer (see 0111280002).
To accomplish that, Clayton vowed to recruit for Sirius CE industry veterans, including former colleagues from his RCA days. “There’s going to be a few gray-haired guys around here,” Clayton told us then. Among his RCA hires was Jim Meyer, who joined Sirius as president-operations and sales in May 2004, and is today CEO of the combined SiriusXM. "Joe was bigger than life to me and to a lot of people," Meyer emailed us Monday. "He loved the CE business and his passion for products was unmatched. He leaves huge shoes behind. I will miss him dearly!"
One of Clayton’s signature Sirius achievements was the October 2004 signing of Howard Stern to a $100 million contract (see 0410080120). Clayton looked upon the Stern deal as giving Sirius “the potential” to defy Wall Street analysts by ultimately giving the company the lead in satellite radio subscriptions over then-No.1 rival XM, he told us. Sirius and XM completed their merger in July 2008 when Clayton was still Sirius chairman, having earlier relinquished the CEO post to Mel Karmazin (see 0807300100).
Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen coaxed Clayton out of retirement when he hired him as CEO in June 2011 (see 1105170088). Clayton took the job because he couldn’t resist the lure of a new chapter in the satellite business, he told us then. The Dish opportunity was “pretty enticing” for a guy who “likes to shake things up,” he said.
When Clayton left Dish in March 2015 and retired for good, he told us his proudest Dish achievement was making the company more “consumer-centric” (see 1502240038). “I suppose the company was more technologically driven than consumer-driven when I came in here,” said Clayton. The introduction of the Hopper DVR under his watch “helped differentiate” Dish in a very homogeneous consumer tech market, he said: “I think it’s raised our brand awareness. We can sell a better mix, and customers don’t churn as much.”
Ergen in a statement Monday hailed Clayton as “a man of passion and vision whose influence on our industry is remarkable in its breadth and depth.” Clayton was a “master marketer” whose brands “were welcomed into tens of millions of American homes,” he said. “As importantly, he mentored and influenced generations of leaders across our industry, including me.”
Dave Arland, Clayton's longtime friend and publicist, praised him on Facebook as "master showman. Doting father. Loving colleague and mentor." Arland recalled that one of his first tasks working for Clayton at Dish was to fulfill his request for live kangaroos to trumpet the CES launch of the Hopper. Years later at another Dish CES press event, Clayton's hands-on involvement with a marching band hired for the occasion landed him on the front page of USA Today, said Arland: "That was Joe."
Clayton’s survivors include his wife, five children and four grandchildren. A calling is scheduled for 3-8 p.m. Thursday at the gym at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Clayton’s alma mater. A viewing is planned for 9 a.m. Friday at Barlowe Funeral Home in Bardstown, Kentucky, and an 11 a.m. funeral mass will be held at the Basilica of Saint Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown.