From a Washington Post obit by Adam Bernstein headlined “Newton Minow, FCC chairman who assailed ‘vast wasteland’ of TV, dies at 97”:

Newton N. Minow, the Federal Communications Commission chairman who in 1961 memorably assailed TV as a “vast wasteland” and went on to have a towering impact on broadcasting by helping shape public television, satellite communications and presidential debates, died at his home in Chicago.

The cause was a heart attack, said his daughter Nell Minow, a top authority on corporate governance.

Mr. Minow was a politically connected Chicago legal grandee and boardroom Zelig whose professional life encompassed nearly every part of the communications business over six decades.