Reviewing Bill Peck’s 56-year-old career for the June-July Issue of VideoAge, is to not just go over the accomplishments of the first British International TV Distribution Hall of Fame honoree, but to also recall the history of television in the U.K., the U.S. and even Russia. Over the course of his professional life, Peck worked for four British, five American and three Russian companies.

During several interviews, Peck reiterated how boring it would be to recount his career  (“sorry, but I am not really a funny guy,” he said at one point), when on the contrary his professional life is full of humorous anecdotes. A cameo appearance by his long-time boss at Worldvision, Bert Cohen, in the story demonstrated Peck’s yet undiscovered British sense of humor and, since he doesn’t talk with a stiff upper lip, he did not have any problem adapting to the “Americanism” of most of his employers.

Out of the 19 VideoAge International TV Distribution Hall of Fame recipients so far, Peck is the first British pioneer to be honored and because of his traditional links to Russia, the feature will appropriately be published in the NATPE Budapest Issue, which focuses on CEE TV market, among other territories.

Peck’s story will recount the Dallas U.K. scandal, the bananas marketing “putsch” in the Soviet Union through television, when he began entertaining buyers and sellers alike at MIP-TV and MIPCOM by playing the piano, and indeed his first MIP-TV in 1969. Plus, the story will also reveal what happened to Peck’s Korean ginseng cigarette holders, and whether his hair turned white or if he was born with it that way.

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