John Crosby (media critic)

John Crosby (May 18, 1912 – September 7, 1991) was an American newspaper columnist, radio-television critic, novelist and TV host. After winning a Personal Peabody Award for his radio criticism in 1946,^[1] he became a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors, serving from 1947 to 1962.^[2] During the 1950s, he was generally regarded as the leading critic of television. The latter notwithstanding he was unable to arrest the exponential growth in the viewership of telecasts headlining Elvis Presley, who he attacked viciously in a June 18, 1956 article entitled “Performer's Gyrations May Doom Rock 'n Roll". Although the article had been written in response to Presley's 2nd appearance on the Milton Berle Show, which drew 22.1 million viewers, Presley followed it by appearing, this time at the most coveted moment in prime time television, the Sunday at 8pm slot, and did so at both the Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows where he garnered 42.1, 60.7, 56.5 and 54.5 million viewers for NBC and CBS, respectively.