Gerald Levin, head of Time Warner, who grew up in Upper Darby and Overbrook Hills, was considered a “visionary” media executive in cable television, writes Chris Kornelis for The New York Times.

Gerald M. Levin, who ran the world’s largest media company, died March 13. He was 84.

He attended Haverford College and later graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1963.

Though a highly successful media executive, he later was the force behind Time Warner’s merger with America Online, considered one of the worst corporate mergers in American history.

Before that, however, Mr. Levin changed the television landscape when he took a regional pay-TV channel known as Home Box Office and convinced its parent company, Time Inc., to transmit the network’s signal by satellite, making it available nationwide.

“Advocating for HBO to be on the satellite was one of the most important decisions of my entire career,” Mr. Levin was quoted as saying in James Andrew Miller’s book “Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers” (2021).

The move paved the way for national cable channels.

He was later responsible for merging Time and Warner Communications.

Read more about Gerald Levin’s career and the AOL merger in The New York Times.